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THE  ADVENTURES 
OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


OP  CALIF.   LIBB1W 


STRANGE  ADVENTURES  IN  NATURE'S  WONDERLANDS 

* 

THE  ADVENTURES 
OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


BY 

HALLAM  HAWKSWORTH 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  STRANGE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  PEBBLE" 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


NEW   YORK  CHICAGO 


BOSTON 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
B 


JUST  A  WORD 


I  don't  want  you  to  think  that  I'm  boasting,  but  I  do 
believe  I'm  one  of  the  greatest  travellers  that  ever  was; 
and  if  anybody,  living  or  dead,  has  ever  gone  through  with 
more  than  I  have  I'd  like  to  hear  about  it. 

Not  that  I've  personally  been  in  all  the  places  or  taken 
part  in  all  the  things  I  tell  in  this  book  —  I  don't  mean  to 
say  that  —  but  I  do  ask  you  to  remember  how  long  it  is 
possible  for  a  grain  of  dust  to  last,  and  how  many  other 
far-travelled  and  much-adventured  dust  grains  it  must 
meet  and  mix  with  in  the  course  of  its  life. 

The  heart  of  the  most  enduring  grains  of  dust  is  a  little 
particle  of  sand,  the  very  hardest  part  of  the  original  rock 
fragment  out  of  which  it  was  made.  That's  what  makes 
even  the  finest  mud  seem  gritty  when  it  dries  on  your 
feet.  And  the  longer  these  sand  grains  last  the  harder 
they  get,  as  you  may  say;  for  it  is  the  hardest  part  that 
remains,  of  course,  as  the  grain  wears  down.  Moreover, 
the  smaller  it  gets  the  less  it  wears.  If  it  happens  to  be 
spending  its  time  on  the  seashore,  for  example,  the  very 
same  kind  of  waves  that  buffet  it  about  so,  waves  that, 
farther  down  the  beach  hurl  huge  blocks  of  stone  against 
the  cliffs  and  crack  them  to  pieces,  not  only  do  not  wear 
away  the  sand  grains,  to  speak  of,  but  actually  save  them 
from  wear.  The  water  between  the  grains  protects  them; 


2130126 


vi  JUST  A  WORD 

like  little  cushions.  And  the  sand  in  the  finer  dust  grains 
carried  by  the  wind  is  protected  by  the  material  that 
gathers  on  its  surface. 

Why,  if  a  pebble  of  the  size  of  a  hickory-nut  may  be 
ages  and  ages  old — almost  in  the  .very  form  in  which  you 
see  it,1  think  what  the  age  of  this  long-enduring  part  of  a 
grain  of  dust  must  be. 

Then  remember  what  the  ever-changing  material  on  the 
surface  of  these  immortal  grains  is  made  of;  the  dust  par- 
ticles of  plants  and  animals,  of  buried  Caesars  and  still 
older  ancients,  such  as  those  early  settlers  of  Chapter  II. 

Finally,  if  what  we  call  flesh  and  blood  can  think  and 
talk,  why  not  a  grain  of  dust  ?  In  fact,  what  is  flesh  and 
blood  but  dust  come  back  to  life  ?  Says  the  poet — and  the 
poets  know: 

"The  very  dust  that  blows  along  the  street 
Once  whispered  to  its  love  that  life  is  sweet." 

You  see  it's  as  likely  a  thing  as  could  happen — this 

whole  story.  ~ 

THE  GRAIN  OF  DUST. 

(Per  H.  H.) 

1  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble. " 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  .  PAGE 

I.  The  Little  Old  Man  of  the  Rock      ....  i 

II.  Some  Early  Settlers  and  Their  Bones    ...  19 

III.  The  Winds  and  the  World's  Work  ....  37 

IV.  The  Bottom-Lands 55 

V.  What  the  Earth  Owes  to  the  Earthworm      .      .  75 

VI.  The  Little  Farmers  with  Six  Feet    ....  92 

VII.     Farmers  with  Four  Feet 114 

VIII.  Water  Farmers  Who  Help  Make  Land       .      .  137 

IX.     Farmers  Who  Wear  Feathers 162 

X.     TJie  Busy  Fingers  of  the  Roots 186 

XI.  The  Autumn  Stores  and  the  Long  Winter  Night  204 

XII.     The  Brotherhood  of  the  Dust 225 

Index 247 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  author  wishes  to  make  special  acknowledgment  to  the 
following  publishers  for  their  courtesy  in  supplying  illustrations: 

The  Macmillan  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Tarr  and 
Martin's  "College  Physiography"  on  page  239;  Darwin's 
"Formation  of  Vegetable  Mould"  on  page  77. 

D.  Appleton  and  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Gilbert  and 
Brigham's  "Introduction  to  Physical  Geography"  on  page  94; 
"Picturesque  America"  on  page  243. 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Beard's 
"American  Boy's  Book  of  Bugs,  Butterflies,  and  Beetles"  on 
page  229;  McCook's  "Natural  History  of  Agricultural  Ant  of 
Texas"  on  pages  206  and  213. 

McClure's  Magazine  for  the  pictures  on  pages  149  and  157. 

Scientific  American  Publishing  Company  for  the  picture  from 
"Scientific  American  Boy  at  School"  on  page  227. 

Harper  and  Brothers  for  the  pictures  from  McCook's  "Na- 
ture's Craftsmen"  on  pages  98,  105,  109,  207,  and  208. 

Strand  Magazine  for  the  pictures  on  pages  165,  182,  and  204. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons  for  the  pictures  from  Yard's  "Top 
of  the  Continent"  on  page  5;  "Country  Life  Reader"  on  pages 
9,  64,  85,  114,  186,  and  241;  Osborn's  "Men  of  the  Old  Stone 
Age"  on  page  33.  Hornaday's  "American  Natural  History"  on 
pages  116,  117,  119,  123,  130,  144,  and  225;  Seton's  "Life  His- 
tories of  Northern  Animals"  on  pages  123,  129,  147,  and  151. 

Henry  Holt  and  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Beebe's 
"The  Bird,  Its  Form  and  Function"  on  page  167;  Salisbury's 
"Physiography"  on  pages  55,  71,  and  167. 


X  THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington  for  the  pictures  on  pages 
8  and  69. 

University  of  Nebraska  for  the  picture  on  page  37. 

Columbia  University  Press  for  the  picture  from  Wheeler's 
"Ants*and  Their  Structure"  on  page  95. 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Sharp's 
"Year  Out  of  Doors"  on  page  n;  "Riverside  Natural  His- 
tory" on  page  117;  Mill's  "In  the  Beaver  World"  on  pages 
152  and  153. 

Ginn  and  Company  for  the  pictures  from  Breasted's  "Ancient 
Times"  on  page  67;  "Agriculture  for  Beginners"  on  page  47; 
Bergen's  "Foundation  of  Botany"  on  pages  49,  190,  and  197; 
Bergen's  "Elements  of  Botany"  on  pages  193  and  195;  Beal's 
"Seed  Dispersal"  on  page  51. 

U.  S.  Geological  Survey  for  the  pictures  on  pages  21,  22,  23, 
30,  31,  and  59. 

New  York  Zoological  Society  for  the  pictures  on  pages  145, 
159,  and  216. 

School  Arts  Magazine  for  the  picture  on  page  221. 

U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture  for  the  pictures  on  pages 
125  and  189. 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History  for  the  pictures  on 
pages  20,  24,  26,  139,  and  162. 

Cassell  and  Company  for  the  pictures  from  "Popular  History 
of  Animals"  on  pages  118,  177,  179,  and  217;  "Popular  Science" 
on  page  242. 

Hutchinson  for  the  pictures  from  "Marvels  of  the  Universe" 
on  pages  92,  101,  103,  141,  169,  and  173;  "Marvels  of  Insect 
Life"  on  page  211. 

The  Dunham  Company  for  the  picture  on  page  45. 

International  Harvester  Company  for  the  picture  on  page 
199. 

Northern  Pacific  Railway  for  the  pictures  on  pages  235  and 
237- 


THE  ADVENTURES 
OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


It  will  be  understood,  as  stated  in  the  preface,  that,  like 
"The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble,"  this  is  an  autobi- 
ography. In  other  words,  it  is  the  grain  of  dust  itself  that 
tells  the  story  of  the  life  of  the  soil  of  which  it  is  a  part. 


THE   ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN 
OF   DUST 

CHAPTER  I 

(JANUARY) 

In  truth  you'll  find  it  hard  to  say 
How  it  could  ever  have  been  young 
It  looks  so  old  and  grey. 

— Wordsworth. 

t 

THE  LITTLE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  ROCK 

Some  say  it  was  Leif  Ericson,  some  say  it  was  Colum- 
bus, but  7  say  it  was  The  Little  Old  Man  of  the  Rock. 

And  I  go  further.  I  say  he  not  only  discovered  America 
but  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  and  the  islands  of  the  sea. 
I'll  tell  you  why. 

I.    How  LITTLE  MR.  LICHEN  DISCOVERED  THE  WORLD 

As  everybody  knows,  we  must  all  eat  to  live,  and  how 
could  either  Columbus  or  anybody  else — except  Mr. 
Lichen — have  done  much  discovering  in  a  world  where 
there  was  nothing  to  eat?  When  the  continents  first  rose 
out  of  the  sea1  there  wasn't  anything  to  eat  but  rock. 
Rock,  to  be  sure,  makes  very  good  eating  if  you  have  the 

1  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble." 


2   •  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

stomach  for  it,  as  Mr.  Lichen  has.  It  contains  sulphur, 
phosphorus,  silica,  potash,  soda,  iron,  and  other  things 
that  plants  are  fond  of,  but  ordinary  plants  can't  get  these 
things  out  of  the  rock — let  alone  human  beings  and  other 
animals;  and  that's  why  Mr.  Lichen  had  the  first  seat  at 
the  table  and  always  does. 

On  bare  granite  boulders  in  the  fields,  on  the  rocky 
ruins  at  the  foot  of  mountains,  and  even  on  the  mountain 
tops  themselves,  on  projecting  rocks  far  above  the  snow 
line,  you  find  the  lichens.  On  rock  of  every  kind  they 
settle  down  and  get  to  work.  They  never  complain  of  the 
climate — hot  or  cold,  moist  or  dry.  When  the  land  goes 
dry  they  simply  knock  off,  and  then  when  a  little  moisture 
is  to  be  had  they're  busy  again.  A  little  goes  a  long  way 
with  members  of  the  family  who  live  in  regions  where 
water  is  scarce.  Indeed,  most  of  them  get  along  with 
hardly  any  moisture  at  all.  The  very  hardiest  of  them 
are  so  small  that  a  whole  colony  looks  like  a  mere  stain 
upon  the  rock. 

While  lichens  are  generally  gray — they  seem  to  have 
been  born  old,  these  queer  little  men  of  the  rock — you  can 
find  some  that  are  black,  others  bright  yellow  or  cream- 
colored.  Others  are  pure  white  or  of  various  rusty  and 
leaden  shades.  Some  are  of  the  color  of  little  mice.  To 
make  out  any  shapes  in  these  tiny  forms,  you  must  look 
very  close;  and  if  you  have  a  hand  lens  you  will  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  this  fairy-land  of  the  lichens  isn't  so 
drab  as  it  seems  to  the  naked  eye.  For  there  are  flower 
gardens — the  tiny  spore  cups.  Some  of  them  are  vivid 
crimson  and,  standing  out  on  a  background  of  pure  white, 
they're  very  lovely.  Some  of  the  science  people  believe 


THE  LITTLE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  ROCK    3 

the  colors  attract  the  minute  insects  that  the  lens  shows 
wandering  around  in  these  fairy  flower  gardens.  But  just 
what  the  insects  can  be  there  for  nobody  knows,  since  the 
lichens  are  scattered,  not  by  insects,  but  by  the  wind. 

As  a  rule  lichens  grow  only  in  open,  exposed  places, 
although  some  are  like  the  violets — they  enjoy  the  shade. 
Some  varieties  grow  on  trees,  some  on  the  ground,  others 
on  the  bleached  bones  of  animals  in  fields  and  wastes  and 
on  the  bones  of  whales  cast  up  by  the  sea. 

Of  course  the  whole  country  was  awfully  wild  when  the 
continents  first  came  out  of  the  sea,  but  that  just  suited 
Mr.  Lichen,  for  there  is  one  thing  he  can't  stand,  and  that 
is  city  life,  with  its  smoke  and  bad  air. 

"Why,  one  can't  get  one's  breath !"  he  says. 

WHY   THE   LICHENS   DISLIKE   CITY   LIFE 

So,  while  you  will  not  meet  Mr.,  Lichen  in  cities — at 
least,  until  after  the  people  are  all  gone;  that  is  to  say,  on 
ruins  of  cities  of  the  past — you  will  find  him  beautifying 
the  ancient  walls  of  abbeys,  old  seats  of  learning  like 
Oxford,  and  the  tombstones  of  the  cities  of  the  dead. 

Mr.  Lichen  always  travels  light.  On  the  surface  of  the 
lichens  are  what  seem  to  be  little  grains  of  dust,  and  these 
serve  the  purpose  of  seeds.  A  puff  of  wind  will  carry 
away  thousands  of  them,  and  so  start  new  colonies  in 
lands  remote. 

You  see,  the  fact  that  he  requires  so  little  baggage  must 
have  been  a  great  advantage  to  Mr.  Lichen  in  those  early 
days,  when  he  had  to  discover  not  only  America  but  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  map,  spread  out  so  wide  and  far. 
You  can  just  imagine  how  the  grains  of  lichen  dust,  the 


4      THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

seed  of  the  race,  must  have  gone  whirling  across  the  world 
with  the  winds. 

But  if  a  breath  of  wind  would  carry  them  away  so  easily, 
how  could  they  stay  on  a  rock,  these  tiny  lichen  travel- 
lers? Especially  as  they  have  no  roots?  They  have 
curious  rootlike  fibres  which  absorb  food  by  dissolving  the 
rock,  and  this  dissolved  rock,  hardening,  holds  them  on. 
The  fibres  of  lichens  that  grow  on  granite  actually  sink 
into  it  by  dissolving  the  mica  and  forcing  their  way  be- 
tween the  other  kinds  of  particles  in  the  rock  that  they 
can't  eat.  Thus  they  help  break  it  up. 

As  we  all  know,  little  people  are  great  eaters  in  propor- 
tion to  their  size,  but  it  is  said  the  lichens  are  the  heartiest 
eaters  in  the  world.  They  eat  more  mineral  matter  than 
any  other  plant,  and  all  plants  are  eaters  of  minerals. 

Yet,  you'd  wonder  what  they  do  with  the  food  they  eat 
— most  of  them  grow  so  slowly.  A  student  of  lichens 
watched  one  of  them  on  the  tiled  roof  of  his  house  in 
France — one  of  the  kind  of  lichens  that  look  like  plates  of 
gold — and  in  forty  years  he  couldn't  see  that  it  had  grown 
a  single  bit,  although  he  measured  it  carefully. 

HOW  MR.  LICHEN  EATS  UP  STONES 

But  how  could  such  feeble  creatures,  as  they  seem  to  be, 
ever  eat  anything  so  hard  as  rock?  Well,  they  couldn't  if 
it  wasn't  for  one  thing — they  understand  chemistry.  At 
least  they  carry  with  them,  or  know  how  to  make,  an 
acid,  and  it's  this  acid  which  enables  them  to  dissolve  the 
rock  so  that  they  can  absorb  it.  The  acid  is  in  their  fibres 
—what  answer  for  roots.  And  the  dissolved  rock  not 
only  gives  them  their  daily  bread,  but,  as  I  said  a  moment 
ago,  holds  them  on.  This  use  of  acid  is  their  way  of  eat- 


THE   SEQUOIAS;  THE   SUNLIGHT  AND  THE   SHADE 

Wonderful  sunlight  effect,  isn't  it?    We  are  here  in  Sequoia  National  Park  and  those  big 
trees  are  sequoias,  members  of  the  pine-tree  family. 


6   THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

ing;  chewing  their  food  very  fine,  and  mixing  it  with 
saliva,  as  all  of  us  young  people  are  taught  to  do. 

The  first  and  smallest  of  the  lichen  family  spread  and 
decay  into  a  thin  film  of  soil.  This  decay  makes  more 
acid,  just  as  decaying  leaves  do  to-day — they  learned  it, 
no  doubt,  from  the  lichens — and  this  acid  of  decay  also 
eats  into  the  rock  and  makes  more  soil.  (You  see  nature, 
from  the  start,  has  been  helping  those  that  help  them- 
selves, just  as  the  old  proverb  has  it.)  Then,  after  the 
first  tiny  lichens — mere  grains  of  dust  that  have  just  begun 
to  feel  the  stir  of  life — come  somewhat  larger  lichens  which 
can  only  live  where  there  is  a  little  soil  to  begin  with. 
These  in  turn  die,  which  means  a  still  deeper  layer  of  soil, 
still  more  acid  of  decay,  and  so  on  up  to  larger  lichens  and 
later  more  ambitious  plants.  Then,  on  the  soil  made  by 
these  successive  generations  of  lichens,  higher  types  of 
plants — plants  with  true  roots — get  a  foothold. 

Besides  making  soil  themselves,  the  lichens  help  accumu- 
late soil  by  holding  grains  of  rock  broken  up  by  their  fibres 
and  loosened  by  the  action  of  the  heat  and  cold  of  day 
and  night  and  change  of  season.  These  little  grains  be- 
come entangled  in  the  larger  lichens  and  are  kept,  many 
of  them,  from  being  washed  away  by  the  heavy  rains.  So 
held,  they  are  in  time  crumbled  into  soil  by  the  action  of 
the  acids  and  by  mixture  with  the  products  of  plant  de- 
cay. To  this  day,  go  where  you  will,  over  the  whole  face 
of  the  earth,  and  you'll  find  the  lichens  there  ahead  of  you, 
dressed  in  their  sober  suits,  some  gray  as  ashes,  others 
brown,  but  some  are  as  yellow  as  gold;  for  even  these 
old  people  like  a  little  color  once  in  a  while.  As  travellers 
they  beat  all. 


THE  LITTLE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  ROCK    7 

"Their  geographical  range  is  more  extended  than  that  of  any 
other  class  of  plants." 

That's  how  the  learned  lichenologists  put  it.  For  these 
lichens,  these  humble  little  brothers  of  our  dust,  that  many 
of  us  never  looked  at  twice  on  the  stones  of  the  field,  or 
the  gray  stumps  and  dead  limbs  in  the  wood,  are  so  inter- 
esting when  you've  really  met  them — been  properly  intro- 
duced— that  a  whole  science  has  grown  up  around  them 
called  "lichenology."  And  exciting!  You  ought  to  hear 
the  hot  discussions  that  lichenologists  get  into.  You  read, 
for  instance,  that  such  and  such  a  theory  "was  received 
with  a  storm  of  opposition"  (as  most  new  theories  are, 
by  the  way,  particularly  if  they  are  sound). 

But  the  tumults  and  the  strifes  of  science,  of  politics, 
or  of  wars  don't  disturb  little  old  Mr.  Lichen  himself. 
There  on  his  rock  he'll  sit,  overlooking  the  scenery  and 
watching  life  and  the  seasons  come  and  go  for  100,  200, 
500  years,  and  more.  For  while  they  grow  so  slowly  the 
lichens  make  up  for  it  by  living  to  an  extreme  age. 

THE   LICHENS   AND    THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

Why,  do  you  know  that  during  the  lifetime  of  certain 
lichens  that  are  still  hale  and  hearty,  not  only  a  long  line 
of  Caesars  might  rise,  flourish,  die,  and,  with  their  clay, 
stop  holes  to  keep  the  wind  away,  as  Mr.  Shakspere  put 
it,  but  the  vast  Roman  Empire  could  and  did  come  into 
being,  move  across  the  stage  with  its  banners  and  trumpets 
and  glittering  pomp  and  go  back  to  the  dust  again. 

Some  lichens,  growing  on  the  highest  mountain  ranges 
of  the  world,  are  known  to  be  more  than  2,000  years  old ! 


8      THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 


EARLY  SETTLERS  IN  THE  DESERT 

Besides  earning  their  own  living  under  hard  conditions,  these  sturdy  pioneers  of  the  desert 
are  preparing  the  way  for  plants  of  a  higher  kind,  as  the  next  two  pictures  will  tell  you. 


II.     THE  MARCH  OF  THE  TREES 

Of  course  I  don't  mean  to  say  it  takes  any  2,000  years 
for  the  average  lichen  to  die  and  turn  to  dust.  These 
long-lived  lichens  are  the  Methuselahs  of  their  race.  Most 
kinds  die  much  younger,  as  time  goes  among  the  lichens, 
and  in  a  comparatively  few  years,  a  century  say,  after 
their  first  settlement  on  the  rock,  the  lichens  have  become 
soil.  All  this  time  the  heating  of  the  rock  by  day  and  the 
cooling  off  at  night,  the  work  of  frost  and  the  gases  of  the 
rain  and  the  air l  have  also  helped  to  make  more  soil  and 
by  and  by  there  is  enough  for  lichens  of  a  larger  growth; 
and  mosses  begin  to  get  a  foothold.  These,  in  turn,  die 
and,  in  decaying,  make  acids,  as  did  the  little  lichens  before 

1  All  these  things  put  together  are  called  "weathering." 


THE  LITTLE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  ROCK    9 

them,  and  this  acid  joins  hands  with  all  the  other  forces  to 
work  up  the  rock  into  soil.  Presently  there  is  enough 
soil  to  let  certain  adventurers  of  the  Weed  family  drop 
in.  The  picking  is  very  thin,  to  be  sure,  but  some  of  these 
Weed  people  have  learned  to  put  up  with  almost  any- 
thing. Don't  suppose,  however,  that  all  weeds  are  alike 
in  this  respect.  Oh,  dear,  no  !  They  come  into  new  plant 


WHAT   THE   DESERT   PIONEERS   DO   FOR   FUTURE    GENERATIONS 

Only  the  sturdiest  kinds  of  shrubs  and  weeds,  such  as  you  see  in  the  desert,  can  earn  their 
keep  in  sandy  soil,  always  thirsty,  like  that  on  the  right.  But  the  desert  vegetation,  dying 
and  decaying — it  is  then  called  ''humus" — not  only  knits  the  soil  together  but  absorbs 
moisture  and  ammonia  from  the  air  and  so  helps  grow  good  crops. 


communities  just  as  the  trees  do,  not  haphazard,  but  ac- 
cording to  a  certain  more  or  less  settled  order.  Some  of 
them,  the  adventurer  type,  will,  it  is  true,  settle  down  and 
seem  contented  enough  on  land  so  poor  that  to  quote  the 
witty  Lady  Townshend  "you  will  only  find  here  and  there 
a  single  blade  of  grass  and  two  rabbits  fighting  for  that"; 
while  other  weeds  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  soil  that, 
in  their  opinion,  is  not  good  enough  for  people  of  their 
family  connections. 

It  has  long  been  known  that  the  character  of  soil  may 


io    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF   DUST 

be  told,  to  a  considerable  degree,  by  the  kind  of  weeds 
that  grow  on  it.  An  old  English  writer  pointed  this  out 
in  his  quaint  way  some  200  years  ago: 

"Ground  which,  though  it  bear  not  any  extraordinary  abun- 
dance of  grass  yet  will  load  itself  with  strong  and  lusty  weeds,  as 
Hemlocks,  Docks,  Nettles  and  such  like,  is  undoubtedly  a  most 
rich  and  fruitful  ground  for  any  grain  whatsoever." 

But,  he  goes  on  to  say: 

"When  you  see  the  ground  covered  with  Heath,  Broom,  Bracken, 
Gorse  and  such  like,  they  be  most  apparent  signs  of  infinite  great 
barrenness.  And,  of  these  infertile  places,  you  shall  understand, 
that  it  is  the  clay  ground  which  for  the  most  part  brings  forth  the 
Moss,  the  Broom,  the  Gorse  and  such  like." 

Wherever  soil  is  coarse  and  bouldery  the  weeds  also  are 
of  a  sturdy  breed.  In  his  long,  delightful  days  among 
the  mountains  Muir1  tells  us  what  a  brave  show  the 
thistles  made  in  this  new  world  of  soil;  how  royal  they 
looked  in  their  purple  bloom,  standing  up  head  and  shoul- 
ders above  the  other  plants,  like  Saul  among  the  people. 

HOW  PLANT  PEOPLE   PAY   THEIR   TAXES 

In  all  these  plant  republics  each  citizen  must  pay  some- 
thing into  the  common  treasury  for  its  board  and  keep. 
This  fund  not  only  meets  "national  expenses"  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  ones  who  pay  these  taxes,  but  it  helps  pre- 
pare the  land  for  the  great  citizens  of  the  future — the 
trees.  In  another  hundred  years — making  two  hundred 
in  all,  after  the  arrival  of  the  very  first  lichens — low  shrubs 
1  Muir.  "The  Mountains  of  California." 


THE  LITTLE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  ROCK   n 

and  bushes  often  find  spots  in  these  new   communities 
where  the  soil  is  thick  enough  for  their  needs. 

It  is  very  curious  how  members  of  the  plant  world, 


THE   LEADERS  OF  THE   GRAND   MARCH 


growing  side  by  side,  seek  their  food  at  different  depths, 
and  send  out  their  roots  accordingly.  It  reminds  one  of 
the  rigid  class  distinctions  below  stairs  in  a  nobleman's 
household  where  the  chef  has  his  meals  in  his  own  private 
apartment,  the  kitchen  maids  in  their  quarters,  the  chauf- 
feurs, footman,  under  butler,  and  pantry  boys  in  the  ser- 
vants' hall. 

But  most  striking,  it  has  always  seemed  to  me,  is  the 
settled  order  in  which  trees  march  into  the  land.     Why 


12     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

shouldn't  the  oaks  come  before  the  maples?  Or  the 
maples  before  the  beeches?  Or  the  beeches  before  the 
pines?  Why  is  it  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  straggler 
here  and  there,  the  first  trees  to  climb  the  stony  moun- 
tainsides are  the  pines?  Then  close  behind  come  such 
trees  as  the  poplars,  and  along  the  streams  below,  the 
willows.  Still  farther  down  the  valley  are  the  beeches; 
farther  still  the  maples,  and  last  of  all  the  oaks. 

So  it  is  they  advance  in  a  certain  regular  way,  each  in 
its  own  place  in  the  ranks.  At  first  it  seems  as  strange 
as  the  coming  of  Birnam  wood  to  Dunsinane  that  gave 
poor  Macbeth  such  a  turn  that  time.  But,  after  all,  the 
explanation  is  quite  simple  and  no  doubt  you  have  guessed 
it  already. 

The  reason  such  trees  as  the  pines,  poplars,  and  willows 
come  first  is  that  the  seeds  are  so  light  they  are  easily  car- 
ried by  the  winds  and  so  reach  new  soil  ahead  of  other  trees 
with  winged  seeds  like  the  beeches  and  the  maples;  for, 
although  these  seeds  also  travel  on  the  wind,  they  are 
much  larger  than  the  winged  seeds  of  the  pine  and  they 
travel  much  more  slowly  and  for  shorter  distances. 

Moreover,  at  the  end  of  their  first  journey,  having  once 
fallen  to  the  ground,  they  are  apt  to  stay.  Then  there  is 
no  further  advance,  so  far  as  these  particular  seeds  are 
concerned,  until  trees  have  sprung  from  them  and  they,  in 
turn,  bear  seeds.  In  the  case  of  very  light  seeds,  like  those 
of  the  pines,  the  wind  not  only  carries  them  far  beyond  the 
comparatively  slow  and  heavy  march  of  the  beech  and 
the  maple,  but  if  they  fall  on  rock  with  little  or  no  soil 
the  next  wind  picks  them  up  and  carries  them  farther,  so 
that  they  may  strike  some  other  spot  where  there  is  soil 


THE  LITTLE  OLD   MAN  OF  THE  ROCK        13 

and  perhaps  a  little  network  of  grass  and  weeds  to  secure 
them  until  they  can  take  root  and  so  hold  their  own.  It 
is  not  only  a  great  advantage  to  the  pine  seeds  to  be  so 
small,  so  far  as  getting  ahead  of  other  trees  is  concerned, 
but  it  is  an  advantage  in  another  way.  Because  they  are 


From  the  painting  bv  Rousseau  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art. 

THE   EDGE   OF   THE   WOODS 
Last  of  all  come  tramping  along  the  sturdy  old  oaks. 

so  small  they  require  comparatively  little  soil  to  start 
with,  are  more  easily  covered  up,  and  so  they  soon  begin 
to  sprout.  The  very  winds  that  carry  them  up  among 
the  mountain  rocks  are  quite  likely  to  cover  them  with 
enough  dust  to  start  on,  and  I  myself  have  helped  raise 
many  a  giant  of  the  mountain  forests  in  this  way.  It 
is  really  wonderful  how  little  soil  a  pine-tree  can  get  along 
with;  if,  say,  its  fortunes  are  cast  on  some  mass  of  moun- 
tain rock.  Somehow  it  manages  to  get  a  living  among  the 


14    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

cracks  and  at  the  same  time  to  hold  its  own  in  the  bitter 
struggle  with  the  winds. 

"The  pine  trees,"  says  Muir,  " march  up  the  sun-warmed 
moraines  in  long  hopeful  files,  taking  the  ground  and  estab- 
lishing themselves  as  soon  as  it  is  ready  for  them." 

Last  of  all  come  tramping  along  the  sturdy  old  oaks 
and  the  nut-bearing  trees.  Their  seeds  are  so  heavy  they 
get  little  help  from  the  winds,  and  then  only  in  the  most 
violent  storms.  They  must  advance  very  slowly  indeed, 
with  occasional  help  from  absent-minded  squirrels  who 
carry  away  and  bury  nuts  and  acorns  and  then  forget 
where  they  put  them. 

ROUGH   CITIZENS   AMONG    THE   PIONEERS 

The  beginnings  of  a  forest  are  stunted  because  the  soil 
is  thin.  Moreover,  the  company  in  which  the  trees  find 
themselves  is  very  miscellaneous,  like  the  population  of 
all  pioneer  communities — weeds,  grasses,  briers,  shrubs. 
High  up  on  a  mountainside  you  can  find  all  these  types  of 
vegetation.  Pines  growing  clear  to  the  snow  line;  farther 
down  the  mountain,  in  crannies,  sumach  and  elder  bushes 
with  field  daisies  and  goldenrod  scattered  among  them; 
while  on  the  barren  rocks  are  the  lichens  and  the  mosses. 

Not  only  do  the  citizens  of  the  plant  world  follow  a 
certain  fixed  order  in  coming  into  new  regions,  but  also  in 
giving  place  to  one  another.  All  plants  of  a  higher  order 
can  live  only  on  the  remains  of  those  of  a  lower,  and  it  is 
most  interesting  to  note  the  process  by  which  each  lower 
form  comes,  does  its  work,  passes  on,  and  is  replaced  by  a 
superior  type.  The  shrubs,  which  can  only  grow  after 
the  weeds  and  grasses  have  made  enough  soil  for  them,  at 


THE  LITTLE  OLD   MAN  OF  THE  ROCK        15 

length  shade  out  these  smaller  pioneers.  Haven't  you 
often  noticed,  when  picnicing  in  deep  woods,  that  the 
grasses  and  flowers  are  to  be  found  only  in  the  sunny 
spaces,  where  there  are  no  trees? 

But  these  thickets  themselves,  after  a  while,  disappear, 
and  pines  take  their  places.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the 
growth  of  forests,  where  the  soil-making  has  so  far  ad- 
vanced that  forests  are  possible.  The  thickets,  with  their 


HOW  SQUIRRELS  HELP  OAKS  TO  MARCH 

Sometimes  they  bury  acorns  and  forget  just  where.     When  frightened  they  often  drop 
them  and  run  away. 


good  soil  and  the  shade  which  keeps  it  damp,  are  just  the 
places  for  the  pine  seeds  brought  in  by  the  wind  to  get  a 
foothold  and  sprout  up.  When  they  grow  into  big  trees 
they  gather  with  their  high  branches  so  much  of  the  sun- 
shine for  themselves  that  little  of  it  gets  through  to  the 
shrubs  below,  so  these  shrubs  disappear,  surviving  only 
in  the  sunny  open  spaces  or  along  the  borders  of  the  wood. 
But  now  notice  what  happens  to  the  pines.  When  the 
trees  become  larger,  tne  young  pines  that  spring  up  be- 
neath their  shade  can't  get  enough  sunshine,  so,  as  the  big 
trees  grow  old  and  die,  there  are  fewer  and  fewer  young 
pines  to  take  their  places.  Now  comes  the  turn  of  the 
spruces.  For  spruces  require  more  and  better  soil  than 
the  pines  and  they  don't  mind  a  reasonable  amount  of 


1 6  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

shade.  So,  as  the  woods  grow  thicker  and  shadier,  the 
pines  gradually  disappear  and  the  spruces  take  their 
places. 

At  first,  in  the  reign  of  the  spruces,  some  of  the  old  resi- 
dents begin  to  come  back.  A  spruce  forest,  not  being  so 
dense  in  the  beginning  as  a  pine  forest,  lets  in  a  good  deal 
of  sunlight,  and  you'll  find  scattered  through  its  aisles 
and  byways  gentians,  bluebells,  daisies,  goldenrod. 

In  course  of  time,  however,  the  leaves  and  branches  of 
the  spruces  become  so  thick  that  hardly  a  sunbeam  can 
get  through  and  you  have  a  forest  where  noontime  looks 
like  twilight;  a  forest  of  deep  shade  and  silence  with  its 
thick  carpet  of  brown  needles,  and  where  all  the  shrubs 
and  grasses  and  flowers  have  disappeared,  except  in  the 
open  spaces.  It  was  in  such  a  forest  and  in  one  of  these 
sunny  glades,  no  doubt,  that  the  knight  the  little  girl 

tells  of  in  Tennyson: 

\ 

"...  while  he  past  the  dim  lit  woods 
Himself  beheld  three  spirits  mad  with  joy 
Come  dashing  down  on  a  tall  wayside  flower 
That  shook  beneath  them  as  the  thistle  shakes 
When  three  gray  linnets  wrangle  for  the  seed." 

HOW   NATURE   RESTORES   ABANDONED   FARMS 

So  it  is  that  new  lands  pass  from  barren  rock  to  forest, 
and  deep  rich  soil,  and  so  it  is  that  worn-out  soils,  the 
result  of  reckless  farming  are  finally  restored.  Hardly 
any  soil  is  too  poor  for  some  kind  of  a  weed.  These  weeds 
springing  up,  die  and  make  soil  that  better  kinds  of  weeds 
can  use.  Later  come  a  few  woody  plants.  In  the  course 


THE  LITTLE  OLD   MAN  OF  THE  ROCK        17 

of  fifteen  or  twenty  years  the  soil  is  deep  enough  to  support 
trees;  and  in  fifty  years  there  is  a  young  forest.  At  the 
end  of  a  century  fine  timber  can  be  cut,  the  land  cleared, 
and  the  old  place  may  be  as  good  as  new. 

But  it's  a  long  time  to  wait !  It's  a  much  better  plan  to 
take  care  of  the  land  in  the  first  place. 

HIDE   AND    SEEK  IN  THE   LIBRARY 

One  of  the  strangest  things  about  Mr.  Lichen,  as  you  will  see 
by  looking  up  the  subject  in  any  botany  or  encyclopaedia,  is  that 
he  is  really  two  people — two  different  plants  that  have  grown  into 
partnership;  and  that  one  of  the  partners  supplies  water  for  the 
firm  while  the  other  furnishes  the  food. 

The  part  of  "him"  that  supplies  the  food  is  green,  or  blue-green, 
and  that  is  why  it  is  able  to  do  this.  This  idea  that  Mr.  Lichen 
is  really  two  people  was  one  of  those  that  was  "received  with  a 
storm  of  opposition,"  but  certain  lichenologists  actually  took  two 
different  kinds  of  plants,  put  them  together  and  made  a  lichen 
themselves,  as  you  will  see  when  you  look  the  matter  up. 

As  to  just  who  among  these  two  kinds  of  plants  shall  go  into 
partnership — that  usually  depends  on  chance  and  the  winds;  al- 
though in  the  case  of  some  lichens,  the  parents  determine  upon 
these  partnerships,  just  as  they  often  do  in  human  relations. 

If  you  want  to  continue  this  interesting  study  and  become 
Learned  Lichenologists,  you  will  be  interested  to  know  that  there 
are  a  lot  of  things  to  be  learned,  including  not  only  no  end  of  de- 
lightful names,  such  as  Endocarpon,  Collema,  Pertusaria,  not  to 
speak  of  Xanthoria  parietina,  and  loads  of  others,  but  there  are 
still  things  unknown  (that  you  may  be  able  some  day  to  find  out. 
For  instance,  while  they  know  that  the  two  kinds  of  vegetation 
that  together  make  a  lichen,  feed  and  water  each  other,  it's  not 
known  exactly  how  they  do  it;  although  the  "Britannica"  article 
has  a  picture  showing  the  two  partners  in  the  very  act  of  going 
into  partnership.  The  article  in  the  "Americana"  shows  some 
striking  forms  of  lichens,  and  how  nature  from  these  very  dawn- 
ings  of  life  begins  to  dream  of  beauty.  You  will  be  surprised  at 
the  forms  shown  in  the  "Americana,"  they  are  either  so  graceful, 


1 8  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

symmetrical,  or  picturesque.  One  of  them  looks  like  a  very  elab- 
orate helmet  decoration,  or  plume  of  a  knight. 

This  article  also  tells  what  an  incredible  number  of  species  of 
lichens  there  are — enough  to  make  quite  a  good-sized  town,  if  they 
were  all  real  people. 

It  also  tells  why  the  orange  and  yellow  lichens  take  to  the  shady 
side  of  the  rock;  and  something  about  how  the  lichens  get  those 
remarkable  decorations  and  sculpturings,  and  what  the  weather 
has  to  do  with  it. 

There  you  will  also  get  a  probable  explanation  of  the  fact  that 
the  manna  which  the  Israelites  found  on  the  ground  in  the  morn- 
ing appeared  so  suddenly. 

In  the  article  in  the  "International"  you  will  find  another  pic- 
ture of  how  the  two  partners — the  fungus  and  the  alga — make  the 
lichen,  and  you  will  learn  that  Mr.  Lichen's  name  like  Mr.  Lichen 
himself,  is  centuries  old;  being  the  very  name  given  him  by  the 
Greeks,  and  afterward  by  the  Romans. 

In  the  "  Country  Life  Reader"  there  is  an  article  on  the  soil  that 
has  a  very  Close  relationship  to  the  subject  of  the  lichens  and  their 
work.  It  tells,  among  other  things,  about  the  value  of  humus — 
decayed  leaves,  grass,  etc. — to  the  soil.  It  was  the  lichens,  you 
know,  who  started  the  humus-making  business. 

The  article  in  the  reader  on  "Planting  Time,"  by  L.  H.  Bailey, 
expresses  the  wonder  we  must  all  feel  when  we  stop  to  think  about 
it,  at  the  magic  work  of  the  soil  in  changing  a  little  speck  of  a  seed 
into  a  plant. 


CHAPTER  II 

(FEBRUARY) 

Behold  a  strange  monster  our  wonder  engages ! 

If  dolphin  or  lizard  your  wit  may  defy. 
Some  thirty  feet  long,  on  the  shore  of  Lyme-Regis 

With  a  saw  for  a  jaw  and  a  big  staring  eye. 
A  fish  or  a  lizard  ?     An  Ichthyosaurus, 

With  a  big  goggle-eye. and  a  very  small  brain, 
And  paddles  like  mill-wheels  in  chattering  chorus 

Smiting  tremendous  the  dread-sounding  main. 

— Professor  Blackie. 

SOME   EARLY   SETTLERS  AND   THEIR  BONES 

But  a  farm  where  nothing  but  plants  grow  isn't  much 
of  a  farm.  Every  good  farmer  knows  that  nowadays,  and 
so  he  stocks  his  place  with  horses  and  cows  and  chickens 
and  things.  Mother  Nature  understood  this  principle 
from  the  beginning,  and  the  plants  and  animals  on  her 
farm  have  always  got  on  well  together. 

For  one  thing  the  plant  and  the  animal  each  help  the 
other  to  get  its  breath.  That  is  to  say,  plants,  when  they 
take  in  the  air,  keep  most  of  the  carbon  there  is  in  it  and 
give  back  most  of  the  oxygen,  which  is  just  what  the 
animal  world  wants;  while  the  animals,  when  they  breathe, 
keep  most  of  the  oxygen  and  give  back  most  of  the  carbon 
—just  the  thing  that  plants  grow  on. 

But  the  service  of  the  animals  to  the  plants  is  very  im- 
portant after  they  have  stopped  breathing  altogether; 

19 


20    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


since  their  flesh  and  bones,  like  the  dead  bodies  of  the 
plants,  go  back  to  enrich  their  common  dust.  The  bones 
and  bodies  and  shells  of  members  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
however,  are  far  richer  food  for  soils  than  is  dead  vegeta- 
tion. The  shell  creatures  of  the  sea  to  which  we  owe  our 
wonderfully  fertile  limestone  soils  are — many  of  them — so 
small  that  you  can  only  make  them  out  with  a  microscope; 
while  certain  other  contributors  to  our  food-supply  were 
so  big  that  one  of  them,  walking  down  a  country  road, 
would  almost  fill  the  road  from  fence  to  fence. 

I.     MR.  DINOSAUR  AND  His  NEIGHBORS 

A  STRANGE   FACE   IN   THE   MEADOW 

Now  let's  take  a  look  at  some  of  these 
big  fellows.  How  would  you  like  to  have 
such  a  creature  as  the  one  at  the  right  of 
this  page  come  ambling  up  to  meet  you  at 


IN  THE  LAND   OF  HIS  FATHERS 


SOME   EARLY   SETTLERS  AND  THEIR  BONES     21 


NO  WONDER   HE   NEVER   WORRIED! 

Quite  aside  from  the  fact  that  he  had  so  little  brain  to  worry  with,  it  seems  highly  improb- 
able that  the  Stegosaurus  ever  felt  any  apprehension  about  attacks  from  the  rear,  in  the 
frequent  military  operations  which  Distinguished  the  times  in  which  he  lived.  In  addition  to 
the  horny  plates  down  his  back  he  had  those  horny  spines  which  were  swung  by  a  tail  some 
ten  feet  long. 

the  meadow  gate  of  an  evening  when  you  went  to  milk  the 
cows?  Yet  more  than  likely  either  this  gentle  animal,  or 
some  of  his  kin,  browsed  over  the  very  field  where  now  the 
cattle  pasture,  for  he,  too,  was  a  grass-eater,  and  with  an 
appetite  most  hearty.  If  you  kept  him  in  a  barn  hiis  stall 
would  have  to  be  eighty  feet  long,  and  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  fill  his  rack  with  a  ton  of  fodder  every  third  day. 
But,  assuming  there  was  a  market  for  him  in  the  shape 
of  steaks  and  roasts,  you  would  be  well  repaid;  for,  in 
prime  condition,  he  weighed  twenty  tons. 

These  monsters  who  ate  grass,  and  other  monsters  who 
ate  them,  and  still  other  monsters  who  lived  in  the  sea, 
appeared  comparatively  late  in  the  life  of  the  world. 


22     THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF   DUST 


TONS  AND  TONS  OF  ANCIENT  BONES 

It  is  only  about  15,000,000  years  ago,  for  example,  that 
the  biggest  of  them  all,  the  Dinosaurs,  lived,  while  the 
earth  itself  is  now  supposed  to  be  some"  100,000,000  years 
old.  Their  numbers  were  enormous,  and  it  is  probable 
there  is  not  an  acre  of  ground  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 


THE  HEAD   OF  HESPERORNIS 

"  Then  there  was  a  great  toothed,  diving  creature  with  wings.  They've  named  him  the 
Hesperornis, '  which  means  'western  bird,'  because  the  fossils  of  the  best-known  species 
were  found  in  the  chalk-beds  of  Kansas." 


Pacific,  and  from  Alaska  to  the  tip  end  of  South  America 
that  has  not  been  fertilized  by  their  bones.  In  fact,  of 
certain  species  I  have  found  the  bones  scattered  all  the 
way  from  Oregon  to  Patagonia;  so  this  must  have  been 
their  pasture. 

They  were  not  only  all  over  the  land,  but  in  the  lakes 
and  in  the  great  sea  that  once  extended  right  through 
North  America  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Arctic 
Ocean.  And  they  were  along  the  shores  of  the  sea  and  in 
the  swamps.  The  bones  of  the  ancestors  of  the  whale 


SOME   EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR   BONES     23 


GREATEST  OF   ANCIENT   FLYING   MACHINES 

Mr.  Pterodactyl,  on  his  way  to  dinner,  looked  like  this.  He  was  the  largest  of  all  flying- 
machines  before  the  days  of  the  Wright  brothers.  He  would  have  measured — if  there  had 
been  anybody  to  measure  him — twenty  feet  across  the  wings!  Like  the  Hesperornis,  he  al- 
ways dined  on  fish. 


were  found  in  such  quantities  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States  that  they  were  used  to  build  fences  until  it  was 
found  they  were  much  more  valuable  to  enrich  the  fields 
themselves. 

In  the  great  American  inland  sea  of  those  days  swam  one 
kind  of  fierce  fish-lizard  that  took  such  big  bites  he  had  to 
have  a  hinge  in  his  jaw.  Because  of  this  hinge  he  could 
open  his  mouth  wider  without  putting  anything  out  of 
place,  don't  you  see?  He  was  called  the  Mesosaur.  But 
he  never  bit  the  Archelon,  who  was  in  his  crowd,  because 
he  couldn't.  The  Archelon  was  the  king  of  turtles,  and, 
like  all  the  turtle  family,  wore  heavy  armor.  He  was  over 
twelve  feet  long.  And  sharks — no  end  of  them !  A  shark 
at  his  best  is  bad  enough,  but  the  sharks  of  those  days 
were  almost  too  terrible  to  think  about.  Such  jaws!  And 


24    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

teeth  like  railroad  spikes!  Then  there  was  a  great  toothed 
diving  creature  with  wings.  They've  named  him  the  "Hes- 
perornis,"  which  means  "  western  bird."  He  was  given 
the  name  because  the  fossils  of  the  best-known  species  were 
found  in  the  chalk-beds  of  Kansas. 


A   BIG   "LITTLE   FINGER"   AND   WHAT  IT  WAS   FOR 

Mr.  Pterodactyl  means  "finger  toe."    What  is  our  little  finger  was  the  longest  of  his  five 
digits.     It  helped  support  and  operate  that  big  bat-like  wing  extending  from  his  arms  to  his  toes. 


Over  the  waters  flew  another  bird-like,  fish-like,  bat-like 
thing  called  the  Pterodactyl.  Look  at  his  picture  and  you 
will  see  how  he  got  his  nickname.  It  means  "finger-toe." 
He  was  the  largest  of  all  flying-machines  until  the  days  of 
the, Wright  brothers.  It  was  over  twenty  feet  across  his 
wings,  from  tip  to  tip;  and,  like  the  Hesperornis,  he  always 
had  fish  for  dinner. 


SOME   EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR  BONES     25 

THE  EARLIEST  RULERS  OF  THE  SEA 

The  first  monsters,  like  the  first  of  almost  everything 
else,  including  the  land  itself,  were  in  the  sea.1  For  a  time 
giant  fish,  armor-plated  like  a  man-of-war,  and  with  awful 
appetites,  just  about  ran  everything.  Then  came  the  reign 
of  the  sharks.  Some  of  them  had  jaws  that  opened  to  the 
height  of  a  door — six  feet  or  over.  Next  in  succession,  as 
rulers  of  the  sea,  were  the  fish-lizards,  of  whom  that  hinge- 
jawed  Mesosaur  was  one.  Of  another  of  these  fish-lizards  a 
famous  teacher  of  Edinburgh  University,  ProfessorBlackie, 
wrote  that  funny  verse  at  the  head  of  this  chapter.  The 
bones  of  this  particular  specimen  were  found  sticking  out 
of  a  cliff  at  Lyme-Regis,  a  popular  watering-place  in  the 
English  Channel,  by  a  pretty  English  girl  who  was  strolling 
along  the  beach. 

The  Ichthyosaurus,  as  Professor  Blackie  says  in  his 
verse,  was  some  thirty  feet  long,  with  a  comparatively 
large  head — like  an  alligator's — set  close  to  his  body. 
Another  fish-lizard,  well  and  unfavorably  known  by  his 
neighbors  of  the  sea,  was  the  Plesiosaurus.  Instead  of  fins 
he  had  big  paddles  resembling  those  of  the  seal.  He  was  a 
kind  of  side-wheeler,  like  the  Mississippi  River  steamboats, 
and  he  could  go  like  everything !  His  neck  was  long  and 
he  darted  after  the  smaller  creatures  he  lived  on. 


But  these  queer  fish  seem  to  have  just  been  getting  ready 
to  land;  for,  by  being  lizards,  they  after  a  while  managed  it. 
A  lizard,  you  know,  belongs  to  the  reptile  family,  and  out 

1  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble." 


26    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

of  these  sea  reptiles  there  grew,  in  course  of  time,  reptiles 
which  lived,  not  in  the  sea  but  in  the  swamps  along  the  sea. 
These  reptiles  were  the  Dinosaurs,  and  they  are  related  to 


A  FAMILY   PARTY 

The  imagination  of  the  artist  enables  us  to  picture  this  family  party — Mrs.  Ichthyosaurus 
and  her  children  out  for  a  stroll  in  prehistoric  waters. 


the  Minosaurs  and  the  Ichthyosaurus,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Saurs,  as  you  can  see  by  the  family  name  ,s  for  "saur"  means 
lizard.  Dinosaur  means  "  terrible  lizard."  Don't  you 
think  he  looks  it? 

Although  some  of  these  Dinosaurs  were  no  larger  than 
chickens,  others  were  by  far  the  largest  creatures  that  ever 


SOME  EARLY  SETTLERS   AND   THEIR  BONES     27 

were,  on  sea  or  land.  Many  of  the  biggest  lived  on  grass, 
just  like  an  old  cow,  while  the  flesh-eating  Dinosaurs  lived 
on  them.  Some  of  these  Dinosaurs  went  on  all  fours,  while 
others  ran  about  on  their  hind  legs,  and  when  they  stood 
still,  propped  themselves  up  on  their  big,  thick  tails  as  do 
kangaroos.  The  Camptosaurus,  one  of  whose  favorite  re- 
sorts was  the  land  that  is  now  Wyoming,  was  thirty  feet 
long.  Another  called  the  Brontosaurus,  was  sixty  feet 
long.  The  Atlantosaurus,  one  of  the  pioneers  of  Colorado, 
measured  eighty  feet  from  the  end  of  his  nose  to  the  end 
of  his  tail,  and  all  of  them  were  built  in  proportion.  The 
Stegosaurus,  also  an  early  settler  in  Wyoming,  had  huge 
bony  plates,  like  ploughshares,  sticking  out  all  along  his 
back  from  the  nape  of  his  neck  to  the  end  of  his  tail.  He 
seems  to  have  gone  about  looking  quite  ugly  and  hump- 
backed, as  our  old  cat  does  when  she  has  words  with  the 
dog. 

After  the  swamps  dried  up  and  the  lizards  could  no  longer 
make  a  living,  came  the  reign  of  the  mammals;  including 
the  Mastodons  and  the  Mammoths,  marching  in  countless 
herds,  trumpeting  through  the  forests. 

HOW    SOME   MONSTERS    PLOUGHED    THE   FIELD 

But  besides  what  they  did  in  the  way  of  fertilizing  the 
land  with  their  flesh  and  bones  some  of  the  mammals  did 
a  good  deal  of  ploughing.  Among  these  early  ploughmen 
were  the  Mastodons  and  the  Mammoths,  and  another 
elephant-like  creature  with  two  tusks,  that  he  wore,  not 
after  the  fashion  among  elephants  to-day,  but  curving  down 
from  his  chin,  somewhat  like  Uncle  Sam's  goatee.  He  used 
these  tusks,  it  is  supposed,  not  only  for  self-defense,  but  for 


28    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

i 

grubbing  up  roots  which  he  ate.  If  so,  they  must  have 
been  about  as  good  ploughs  as  those  crooked  sticks  that 
were  used  by  the  early  farmers  among  men,  and  that  are 
still  in  use  among  primitive  peoples. 

THE   ELEPHANT  FAMILY   AS   PLOUGHMEN 

What  makes  it  more  likely  that  the  creature  with  the 
down-curving  tusks  stirred  the  soil  with  them  is  that  his 
cousins,  the  elephants  of  to-day,  are  themselves  great 
ploughmen.  Elephants  feed,  not  only  on  grass  and  the 
tender  shoots  of  trees,  but  on  bulbs  buried  in  the  soil,  which 
they  hunt  out  by  their  fine  sense  of  smell.  In  digging  these 
bulbs  they  turn  up  whole  acres  of  ground.  Elephants  also 
do  a  great  deal  of  ploughing  by  uprooting  trees  so  as  to 
make  it  more  convenient  to  get  at  their  tender  tops.  Sir 
Samuel  Baker,  the  explorer,  says  the  work  done  by  a  herd 
of  elephants  in  a  mimosa  forest  in  this  way  is  very  great 
and  that  trees  over  four  feet  in  circumference  are  uprooted. 
In  the  case  of  the  biggest  trees  several  elephants  work  to- 
gether, some  pulling  the  tree  with  their  trunks,  while  others 
dig  under  the  roots  with  their  tusks.  To  be  sure,  the  mi- 
mosa-trees have  no  tap  roots,  but  tearing  them  out  of  the 
ground  is  no  small  job,  nevertheless.  It  takes  strength  and 
it  takes  engineering. 

Another  early  ploughman  was  a  bird,  the  Moa.  The 
Moa  had  no  wings,  but  his  muscular  legs  were  simply 
enormous,  and  so  were  his  feet.  New  Zealand  seems  to 
have  been  the  headquarters  of  the  Moas.  There  used  to 
be  loads  of  them  as  shown  by  the  huge  deposits  of  their 
bones.  They  are  supposed  to  have  been  killed  in  count- 
less numbers  during  the  Ice  Ages  in  the  Southern  Hemi- 


SOME  EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR  BONES     29 

sphere;  for  there  were  Ice  Ages  in  the  Southern  as  well  as 
the  Northern  Hemisphere.  In  one  great  morass  in  New 
Zealand  abounding  in  warm  springs,  bones  of  the  Moas 
were  found  in  such  countless  numbers,  layer  upon  layer, 
that  it  is  thought  the  big  birds  gathered  at  these  springs 
to  keep  warm  during  those  great  freezes. 

THE  MILLSTONES   OF    THE   MOAS 

Besides  the  work  they  did  with  feet  and  bills  you  may 
imagine  how  much  nice  fresh  stone  the  Moas  must  have 
ground  up  in  their  crops  during  the  millions  of  years  they 
existed.  It  was  a  regular  mill — the  gizzard  of  a  Moa — full 
of  pebbles  as  big  as  hickory  nuts.  Scattered  about  the 
springs  where  their  bones  are  found  are  little  heaps  of  these 
pebbles,  each  the  contents  of  a  gizzard.  Like  miniature 
tumuli,  they  mark  the  spots  where  the  bodies  of  the  Moas 
returned  to  dust. 

Perhaps  some  of  those  flesh-eating  Dinosaurs  did  a  little 
ploughing  once  in  a  while,  too;  for  one  theory  is  that  those 
ridiculous  little  arms  were  used  for  scratching  out  a  nest 
for  the  eggs,  just  as  the  crocodiles  and  the  alligators  and 
the  turtles  dig  nests  for  their  eggs  to-day.  For  all  these 
animals,  as  did  the  Dinosaurs,  belong  to  the  reptile  family, 
and  show  the  family  trait  of  digging  out  nests  for  their 
eggs. 

Although  the  Dinosaurs  roamed  the  swamps  and  low- 
lands of  all  the  ancient  world,  their  favorite  resort  was  the 
territory  now  occupied  by  our  Western  States — judging 
from  the  quantities  of  bones  they  left — while  that  old  Medi- 
terranean Sea  of  ours  was  full  of  their  kin,  the  sea-lizards. 
Professor  Marsh,  of  Yale,  who  was  among  the  first  ex- 


30    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

plorers  of  the  graves  of  these  monarchs  of  the  past,  says 
that  one  day,  while  riding  through  a  valley  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  he  saw  the  bones  of  no  less  than  seven  sea- 
lizards  staring  at  him  from  the  cliffs.  Yet,  only  here  and 


A   PUZZLE   PAGE   FROM  THE   GREAT   STONE   BOOK 

Talk  about  your  cut-out  puzzles !  Here  is  a  specimen  of  the  kind  of  puzzle  Nature  and  the 
course  of  things  in  the  darkest  ages  of  world  history  have  cut  out  for  the  paleontologists. 
It  is  a  find  of  ancient  bones  in  the  asphalt  deposits  near  Los  Angeles. 


there  by  the  wearing  through  of  the  rocks  by  flowing  streams 
has  nature  opened  up  these  vast  mausoleums,  the  moun- 
tains and  the  cliffs.  What  enormous  quantities  of  bones, 
then,  must  still  be  buried  there,  what  tons  and  tons  must 
have  given  their  lime  and  phosphate  to  the  soil.  So  you 
see  this  story  of  old  bones,  even  from  a  farming  stand- 
point, is  no  light  matter. 


SOME   EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR  BONES     31 


HOW  THE  WISE  MEN  ANSWER  THE  PUZZLES 

By  their  marvellous  skill  and  their  knowledge  of  the  mechanics  of  monster  anatomy  the 
paleontologists  fit  one  bone  fragment  to  another,  supply  the  missing  parts  in  artificial  ma- 
terial, and  behold!  the  monsters  take  their  places  in  the  long  procession  of  the  ages.  There 
has  been  nothing  equal  to  it  since  the  vision  of  the  prophet  in  the  Valley  of  Dry  Bones.  (Eze- 
kiel  37:  i-io.) 


II.    How  THE  MONSTERS  DIED  AND  RETURNED 
TO  DUST 

"But  you  said  these  monsters  lived  in  the  sea  and  in 
swamps.  Then  how,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  did 
their  bones  get  up  into  the  mountains?" 

WHEN   THE   INLAND    SEA   WENT  DRY 

Well,  it's  like  this:  As  I  said  a  while  back,  in  the  days  of 
the  monster  fish  and  the  monster  lizards,  there  was  a  great 
sea  reaching  clear  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  and  with  swamps  along  the  borders  extending  far 


32     THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

into  lands  that  afterward  became  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
When  the  land  began  to  rise,  due  to  the  shrinking  of  the 
earth — a  thing  that  has  been  going  on  ever  since  the  earth 
was  born — the  sea  and  the  swamps  went  dry,  and  far  to 
the  west  the  land  wrinkled  up  into  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
In  these  layers  of  rock  that  made  the  mountains  were  the 
bones  of  the  monsters  that  had  died  when  the  rocks  were 
still  mud,  in  the  swamps  and  along  the  borders  of  the 
inland  sea. 

Not  only  did  the  land  under  the  western  portion  of  the 
sea  slowly  rise  until  the  waters  were  completely  closed  in 
on  the  west,  and  the  sea  thus  made  that  much  narrower, 
but  the  rise  of  the  land  on  the  south  cut  off  connection  with 
the  great  salt  ocean  which  surrounds  the  continents  to-day. 
So  the  salt-water  fish,  for  lack  of  salt  water,  died,  and  with 
them  the  monsters  like  the  Ichthyosaurus  that  lived  on  the 
salt-water  fish  that  lived  in  this  salt  sea. 

But  it  wasn't  alone  that  the  seas  grew  narrower  and 
more  shallow  because  of  the  elevation  of  the  lands.  The 
mountains  rising  in  the  west,  cut  off  the  rain-laden  winds 
which  blew  from  the  Pacific  in  those  days  just  as  they  do 
now.  Thus  the  seas  dried  up  so  much  the  faster.  But 
first,  before  the  sea  went  entirely  dry,  its  place  was  taken 
by  the  lakes  and  swamps  into  which  it  shrivelled  up.  Low, 
swampy  land  is  just  what  reptiles  like,  so  this  was  their 
Golden  Age,  just  as  the  previous  time  of  the  wide,  deep 
sea  was  the  Golden  Age  of  the  big  fish  and  the  fish-lizards. 

Then,  as  the  land  still  rose  and  the  climate  grew  dryer, 
the  reptiles  passed  away,  and  in  came  the  mammal  family, 
to  which  the  cows  and  the  horses  and  the  cats  and  the 
kittens,  and  all  the  rest  of  us,  belong. 


SOME  EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR   BONES     33 

TOO   MUCH   BRAWN,    TOO   LITTLE   BRAIN 

Of  course,  even  where  they  didn't  die  with  their  boots 
on,  so  to  speak,  as  so  many  of  them  did  in  those  lawless 
days,  there  came  a  time  for  each  monster,  in  the  order  of 


THE  TIGER   WITH  THE   SABRE  TEETH 

Tigers  like  this  lived  ages  ago  in  both  the  Old  World  and  the  New.    They  had  canine 
teeth,  curved  like  a  sabre,  in  the  upper  jaw. 


nature,  when  he  drew  his  last  breath.  But  what  seems  so 
strange  is  that  all  these  monsters — the  biggest  and  strongest 
of  them — entirely  disappeared  and  left  no  descendants ! l 
The  whole  of  the  mystery  has  not  been  unravelled  yet, 
even  by  the  wise  men  of  science,  but  still  they  have  learned 
a  good  deal.  For  one  thing,  they  know  that  most  of  the 

1  That  is  to  say,  no  descendants  worthy  of  them.  It  is  now  thought 
some  of  the  modern  reptiles  may  be  degenerate  descendants  of  the  big 
reptiles  of  old. 


34    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

reptiles  and  the  fish-lizards  disappeared  because  so  much 
of  the  land  where  they  lived  went  dry.  They  had  to  get  a 
new  boarding-place,  and  there  wasn't  any  to  get !  Another 
thing  was  that  these  big  fellows,  although  they  were  so  big, 
and  got  along  finely  while  everything  was  just  so,  had  so 
little  brain  they  couldn't  change  their  habits  to  meet  new 
conditions,  as  our  closer  and  cleverer  cousins,  the  mam- 
mals, did.  Why,  do  you  know  that  one  of  these  monsters, 
who  was  twenty-five  feet  long  if  he  was  an  inch,  and  twelve 
feet  high,  had  a  brain  no  bigger  than  a  man's  fist  ?  All  the 
monsters  of  those  days  were  like  that — tons  of  bone  and 
muscle,  but  a  very  small  supply  of  brains. 

So  when  things  went  against  them,  they  just  had  to 
give  up,  and,  like  a  queer  dream,  they  faded  away.  But 
their  history  makes  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters 
in  the  whole  wonderful  story  of  the  dust. 

Of  all  the  live  stock  that  have  fed  on  the  great  world- 
farm  and  helped  enrich  it  with  their  bones,  these  animals 
were  surely  the  strangest  that  ever  were  seen ! 

HIDE   AND    SEEK  IN  THE   LIBRARY 

"But  since  these  monsters  passed  away  many  millions  of  years 
ago,  and  all  that  is  usually  found  is  a  piece  of  them  here  and  there, 
how  do  the  men  of  science  know  so  much  about  them — how  they 
looked,  and  how  they  ate,  and  how  they  treated  one  another?" 

That's  a  good  question.  It  does  seem  strange.  Why,  to  hear 
them  talk,  you'd  suppose  these  men,  learned  in  ancient  bones,  had 
actually  met  the  monsters !  And,  speaking  of  meeting  them,  I 
must  tell  you  a  little  story.  It's  a  good  story  and  it  will  answer 
your  question. 

Baron  Cuvier,  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the  paleontologists, 
awoke  from  a  deep  sleep  to  see  standing  by  his  bed  a  strange, 
hairy  creature  with  horns  and  hoofs.  And  it  said: 


SOME   EARLY  SETTLERS  AND   THEIR  BONES     35 

"Cuvier!  Cuvier!  I  have  come  to  eat  you!"  But  the  baron, 
taking  in  the  form  of  the  monster  at  a  glance,  only  laughed. 

"Horns  and  hoofs?     You  can't.     You're  a  grain-eater!" 

See  the  point?  The  baron  argued  that  because  the  monster 
had  horns  and  hoofs  he  must  be  a  grain-eater;  for  all  creatures  with 
both  horns  and  hoofs  are  grain-eaters.  This  particular  creature, 
to  be  sure,  was  an  eater  of  both  meat  and  grain — being  one  of 
Cuvier 's  students  who  was  trying  to  play  a  trick  on  him.  But  the 
principle  holds  good.  The  scientists,  knowing  one  thing,  infer 
another.  Because  animals  with  both  horns  and  hoofs  eat  no  meat 
Cuvier  knew  his  visitor  couldn't  eat  him,  even  if  he'd  been  real 
and  not  just  made  up. 

For  another  instance,  take  our  queer  old  friend  that  Professor 
Blackie  wrote  the  funny  rhyme  about — the  Ichthyosaurus  "  with  a 
saw  for  a  jaw  and  a  big  staring  eye."  The  scientists  figure,  just 
from  looking  into  the  hollow  socket  where  the  eye  used  to  be,  that 
he  could  see  at  night  like  a  cat — and  right  through  muddy  water, 
too;  that  he  spent  most  of  his  time  in  shallows  near  the  shore; 
that  it  didn't  make  any  difference  to  him  whether  a  fish  was  near  or 
far,  provided  it  wasn't  too  far,  of  course,  for  he  could  see  it  and  catch 
it,  just  the  same.  They  also  said — these  learned  men,  after  peering 
into  the  dark  hollow  where  that  remarkable  eye  used  to  be— that  Mr. 
Ichthyosaurus  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  diving  and  a  great  deal 
of  time  with  his  homely  face  just  above  the  surface  of  the  water. 

Why  they  could  reason  all  this  from  a  hollow  eye  socket  and 
some  bony,  flexible  plates  around  the  outer  edge  of  it,  you  will  see 
by  referring  to  such  books  as  "Animals  of  the  Past,"  by  F.  A. 
Lucas,  director  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History; 
"Creatures  of  Other  Days"  and  "Extinct  Monsters,"  by  Hutchin- 
son;  "Extinct  Animals,"  by  Lankester;  "Mighty  Animals,"  by 
Mix;  the  chapter  "When  the  World  was  Young,"  in  Lang's  "Red 
Book  of  Animal  Stories,"  and  "Restoring  Prehistoric  Monsters" 
in  "Uncle  Sam,  Wonder  Worker,"  by  Du  Puy. 

Here  are  some  more  conclusions  they  draw  from  certain  facts. 
See  how  near  you  can  come  to  reasoning  them  out  for  yourself  be- 
fore looking  them  up  in  the  books  that  tell. 

Why  it  is  supposed  the  Dinosaurs  swam  like  Crocodiles.  (Look 
at  the  picture  of  Mr.  I.,  and  pay  particular  attention  to  his  tail.) 

Why  it  is  they  say  that  the  sea-lizards  with  long  necks  must 
have  had  small  heads. 


36    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Why  it  is  argued  that  because  the  Mesosaurus  had  a  hinge  in 
his  jaw  he  must  have  had  a  big,  loose,  baggy  throat. 

"Keeping  Up  the  Soil,"  in  "The  Country  Life  Reader,"  deals 
with  the  subject  of  the  use  of  fertilizers  on  the  farm — how  easy  it  is 
to  waste  them,  how  easy  it  is  to  save  them,  and  how  important  it  is 
that  they  should  be  saved;  while  the  article  on  "Acid  Soils"  tells 
how  the  lime  in  the  bones  of  the  monsters  has  helped  keep  the  soil 
from  getting  "sour  stomach,"  and  also  how  they  unlocked  the 
potash  and  phosphorus  in  the  soil  so  that  the  plants  could  get  at 
them. 


,          i.    ,.-.  j  • ; .- .    '-:•.  ;     '-• ,-.. 


FERTILE  FIELDS  THAT  RODE  ON  THE  WIND 

The  winds  that  now  help  grow  the  corn  and  wheat  on  these  broad  fields  by  carrying  the 
pollen  from  one  plant  to  another,  also  brought  the  soil  on  which  they  grew.  These  are  the 
loess  plains  of  Nebraska.  There  are  42,000  acres  of  them. 


CHAPTER   III 

(MARCH) 

.  .  .  the  busy  winds 
That  kept  no  intervals  of  rest. 

— Wordsworth. 

Except  wind  stands  as  never  it  stood 
'Tis  an  ill  wind  turns  none  to  good. 

— Tusser. 

THE  WINDS   AND   THE   WORLD'S   WORK 

That  saying  "idle  as  the  winds"  must  have  started  in 
the  days  when  they  didn't  know;  for  if  ever  there  was  a 
busy  people,  it's  the  Winds. 

37 


38    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Not  only  do  they  help  plant  the  trees  of  the  forest,  sow 
the  fields  with  grass  and  flowers,  and  water  them  with 
rain,  but  they  make  and  carry  soil  all  over  the  world. 
And,  like  everything  else  in  Nature,  they  have  a  sense  of 
beauty  and  the  picturesque.  Rock,  for  example,  weathered 
away  into  dust  by  the  help  of  the  winds,  as  it  is,  takes  on 
all  sorts  of  picturesque  shapes.  And,  of  course,  the  winds 
love  music;  everybody  knows  that.  Before  we  get  through 
with  this  chapter  we're  going  to  end  a  happy  day  outdoors 
with  a  grand  musical  festival  in  the  forest,  with  light  re- 
freshments— spice-laden  winds  from  the  sea.  There'll  be 
nobody  there  but  the  trees  and  the  winds  and  John  Muir 
and  us;  all  nice  people. 

I.     SUCH  CLOUDS  OF  DUST  ! 

March  leads  the  procession  of  the  dusty  months  because 
the  warming  up  of  the  land,  as  the  sun  advances  from  the 
south,  brings  the  colder  and  heavier  winds  down  from  the 
north.  These  winds  seem  to  have  a  wrestling  match  with 
the  southern  winds  and  with  each  other,  and  among  them 
they  kick  up  a  tremendous  dust,  because  there's  so  much 
of  it  lying  around  loose;  for  the  snows  have  gone,  and  the 
rainy  season  hasn't  begun,  and  the  fields  are  bare. 

ABOUT  THE  DUST  WE  GET  IN  OUR  EYES 

Most  people  think  these  March  winds  a  great  nuisance 
because  some  of  us  dust  grains  are  apt  to  get  into  their 
eyes;  but  dust  in  the  eye  is  only  the  right  thing  in  the 
wrong  place.  Just  think  of  the  amount  of  dust  going 
about  in  March  that  doesn't  get  into  your  eye;  and  how  nice 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S  WORK   39 

ana  fine  it  is.  and  how  mixed  with  all  the  magic  stuff  of 
different  kinds  of  soil,  thus  brought  together  from  every- 
where. 

An  English  writer  on  farming  says  he  thinks  the  fact 
that  English  farms  have  done  their  work  so  well  for  so 
many  centuries  is  due,  in  no  small  degree,  to  the  March 
winds  that  have  brought  us  world-travelled  dust  grains 
from  other  parts  of  the  globe. 

And  the  wind  is  a  good  friend  to  the  good  farmer,  but 
no  friend  to  the  poor  one;  for  it  carries  away  dust  all  nicely 
ground  from  the  fields  of  the  farmer  who  doesn't  protect 
his  soil  and  carries  it  to  farmers  who  have  wood  lots  and 
good  pastures  and  winter  wheat,  and  leaves  it  there;  for 
woods  and  pastures  and  sown  fields  hold  the  soil  they  have, 
as  well  as  the  fresh,  new  soil  the  winds  bring  to  them. 

Most  of  the  fine  prairie  soils  in  our  Western  States  owe 
not  a  little  of  their  richness  to  wind-borne  dust.  In  west- 
ern Missouri,  southwestern  Iowa,  and  southeastern  Ne- 
braska are  deep  deposits  of  yellowish-brown  soil,  the  gift 
of  the  winds.  And,  my,  what  apples  it  raises!  It  is  in 
this  soil  that  many  of  the  best  apple  orchards  of  these 
States  are  located.  And  now,  of  course,  the  apple-growers 
see  to  it  that  this  soil  stays  at  home. 

But  there's  another  kind  of  dust  that  deserves  special 
mention,  and  that's  the  kind  of  dust  that  comes  from  vol- 
canoes. Volcanoes  make  a  very  valuable  kind  of  soil  ma- 
terial, often  called  "volcanic  ash."  It  isn't  ashes,  really. 
It's  the  very  fine  dust  made  by  the  explosion  of  the  steam 
in  the  rocks  thrown  out  by  the  volcano.  The  pores  of  the 
rocks,  deep-buried  in  the  earth,  are  filled  with  water,  and 
when  these  rocks  get  into  a  volcanic  explosion,  this  water 


40    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

turns  to  steam,  and  the  steam  not  only  blows  out  through 
the  crater  of  the  volcano,  but  the  rocks  themselves  are 
blown  to  dust.  This  dust  the  winds  catch  and  distribute 
far  and  wide.  Sometimes  the  dust  of  a  volcanic  explosion 
is  carried  around  the  world.  In  the  eruption  of  Krakatoa, 
in  1883,  its  dust  was  carried  around  the  earth,  not  once 
but  many  times.  The  progress  of  this  dust  was  recorded 
by  the  brilliant  sunsets  it  caused.  It  is  probable  that 
every  place  on  the  earth  has  dust  brought  by  the  wind 
from  every  other  place.  So  you  see  if  you  happen  to  be 
a  grain  of  dust  yourself,  and  keep  your  eyes  and  ears  open, 
you  can  learn  a  lot,  as  I  did,  just  from  the  other  little  dust 
people  you  meet. 

THE   WINDS   AND    VOLCANOES 

But  that  isn't  all  of  this  business — this  partnership — 
between  the  volcanoes  and  the  winds.  Did  anybody  ever 
tell  you  how  the  volcanoes  help  the  winds  to  help  the 
plants  to  get  their  breath  ?  It's  curious.  And  more  than 
that,  it's  so  important— this  part  of  the  work — that  if  it 
weren't  carried  on  in  just  the  way  it  is,  we'd  all  of  us — 
all  the  living  world,  plants  and  animals — soon  mingle  our 
dust  with  that  of  the  early  settlers  we  read  about  in  the 
last  chapter.  In  other  words,  all  the  plant  world  would 
die  for  lack  of  fresh  air  and  all  the  animal  world  would 
die  for  lack  of  fresh  vegetables.  So  they  say ! 

According  to  that  fine  system — the  breath  exchange  be- 
tween the  people  of  the  plant  and  animal  kingdoms — the 
plants  breathe  in  the  carbon  gas  that  the  animals  breathe 
out;  you  remember  about  that.  But  the  amount  of  car- 
bon gas  in  the  air  is  never  very  large,  and  if  there  were  no 


THE   WINDS  AND  THE   WORLD'S   WORK       41 

other  supply  to  draw  on  except  the  breath  of  animals  and 
the  release  of  this  same  gas  when  the  plants  themselves 
decay,  we'd  very  soon  run  out. 

Now  this  needed  additional  supply  comes  from  the  vol- 
canoes. Ever}'  time  a  volcano  goes  off — and  they're  always 
going  off  somewhere  along  the  world's  great  firing-line — 
it  throws  out  great  quantities  of  this  gas,  and  this  also  the 
winds  distribute  widely  and  mix  through  the  atmosphere. 

And  another  thing:  This  carbon  in  the  air  helps  crumble 
up  the  rocks  already  made,  and  it  enters  into  the  manu- 
facture of  the  limestone  in  the  rock  mills  of  the  sea.  This 
limestone  will  make  just  as  rich  soil  for  the  fanners  of  the 
future  as  the  limestones  of  other  ages  have  made  for  the 
famous  Blue-Grass  region  of  Kentucky,  for  example. 

All  of  which  only  goes  to  show  how  first  unpleasant  im- 
pressions about  people  and  things  are  often  wrong.  A 
"dusty  March  day,"  you  see,  isn't  just  a  dusty  March 
day.  It's  quite  an  affair ! 

II.     THE  DUST  MILLS  OF  THE  WIND 

But  wind  is  not  alone  a  carrier  for  other  dust-makers; 
it  has  dust  mills  of  its  own.  The  greatest  of  these  mills  are 
away  off  among  the  mountains  and  in  desert  lands,  but 
after  making  it  in  these  distant  factories  the  winds  carry 
much  of  this  fresh  new  soil  material  to  lands  of  orchard  and 
pasture  and  growing  grain. 

Not  long  ago  two  of  the  professors  at  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  found  a  good  illustration  of  what  an  immense 
amount  of  soil  is  distributed  in  this  way,  and  what  long 
distances  it  travels.  Among  the  weather  freaks  of  a  March 


42     THE   ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

day  was  a  fall  of  colored  snow  that,  it  was  found,  covered 
an  area  of  100,000  square  miles,  probably  more.  The  color 
on  the  snow  was  made  by  dust  blown  clear  from  the  dry 
plains  of  the  Southwestern  States,  a  thousand  miles  away. 


TYPES  OF  NATURE'S   SCREW  PROPELLERS 

You  can  see  for  yourself  (from  the  picture  on  the  lefO  that  long  before  man  ever  thought 
of  driving  his  ships  through  the  water  with  screw  propellers  or  pulling  his  flying  machines 
through  the  air  by  the  whirligigs  on  the  end  of  their  noses,  some  flying  seeds,  such  as  those 
of  the  ash  here,  had  screw  propellers  of  their  own.  And  do  you  know  that  Nature  also  em- 
ploys the  propeller  principle,  not  only  in  the  operation  of  the  wings  of  birds  but  in  the  wing 
feathers  themselves  ?  The  two  pictures  on  the  right  show  the  action  of  the  wing  and  the  wing 
feathers  when  a  bird  is  in  flight. 

The  whole  of  this  dust  amounted  to  at  least  a  million  tons; 
and  may  even  have  amounted  to  hundreds  of  millions  of 
tons,  so  the  professors  think. 

LITTLE   MILLSTONES   IN  BIG   BUSINESS 

For  grinding  rocks  to  get  out  ore,  or  for  making  cement 
in  cement  mills,  men  use  big  machines,  somewhat  on  the 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S   WORK       43 

style  of  a  coffee-mill.  These  machines  are  called  "crush- 
ers." The  winds,  in  their  enormous  business  of  soil-grind- 
ing, however,  stick  to  the  idea  you  see  so  much  in  Nature, 
that  of  using  little  things  to  do  big  tasks;  as  in  digging 
canyons  and  river  beds,  and  spreading  out  vast  alluvial 
plains  by  using  raindrops  made  up  into  rivers;  in  working 
the  wonders  of  the  Ice  Ages  with  snowflakes;  and  building 
the  bones  and  bodies  of  those  big  early  settlers,  and  of  all 
animal  life,  and  the  giant  trees  of  the  forest  out  of  little 
cells.  For,  what  do  you  suppose  the  winds  take  for  mill- 
stones in  grinding  down  the  mountains  into  dust?  Little 
grains  of  sand ! 

And  with  the  help  of  the  sun  and  Jack  Frost  it  makes 
these  fairy  millstones  for  itself.  The  outside  of  a  big  rock 
grows  bigger  under  the  warm  sun,  in  the  daytime,  and  then 
when  the  sun  goes  down  and  the  rock  cools  off  it  shrinks, 
and  this  spreading  and  shrinking  movement  keeps  crack- 
ing up  and  chipping  off  pieces  of  rock  of  various  sizes.  Up 
on  the  mountain  tops,  among  the  peaks,  the  change  of 
temperature  between  night  and  day  is  very  great,  and  even 
in  midsummer  you  can  always  hear  a  rattling  of  stones  at 
sunrise.  The  heat  of  the  rising  sun  warms  and  expands 
the  rock,  and  so  loosens  the  pieces  that  Jack  Frost  has 
pried  off  with  his  ice  wedges  during  the  night. 

Then  also  during  periods  of  alternate  freezing  and  thaw- 
ing in  Spring  and  Fall,  the  rock  is  slivered  up.  These 
changes  in  the  weather  as  between  one  day  and  another 
are  due  to  the  winds.  In  January  and  February,  for  exam- 
ple, thaws  and  freezes  are  common.  When  the  winds  blow 
from  the  south,  the  snow  melts,  water  runs  into  cracks  in 
the  rock  and  fills  their  pores;  then  a  shift  of  the  winds  to 


44    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  north,  a  freeze,  and  the  water  in  the  crevices  and  the 
pores  turns  to  ice,  expands,  and  breaks  off  more  rock. 

And  what  muscles  Jack  has!  Freezing  water  exerts  a 
pressure  of  138  tons  to  the  square  foot;  so  there's  no  hold- 
ing out  against  him  once  he  gets  his  ice  wedges  in  a  good 
crack.  He  sends  huge  blocks  tumbling  down  the  mountain- 
side. The  larger  blocks,  striking  against  one  another, 
break  off  smaller  fragments.  The  smallest  fragments  the 
wind  seizes.  Others  are  washed  down  by  the  rains.  The 
largest,  carried  away  by  mountain  torrents,  bump  together 
as  they  thunder  along,  and  so  break  off  more  fragments 
and  grind  them  so  small  that  the  wind  can  pick  them  up 
along  the  banks  when  the  torrents  shrink,  or  in  their  beds 
when  these  sudden  streams  go  dry. 

RUNNING   WATER  AND    THE   WINDS 

In  changing  rock  into  soil,  running  water  and  the  winds 
each  have  an  advantage  over  the  other.  Water  weighs 
a  great  deal  more  than  air — over  800  times  as  much — and 
so  grinds  faster  with  its  tools  of  pebbles  and  sand.  The 
winds,  on  the  other  hand,  get  over  a  great  deal  more  ter- 
ritory, and  they,  like  the  lichens,  understand  chemistry. 
Two  of  the  gases  they  always  carry  right  with  them — car- 
bon dioxide  and  oxygen — help  decay  the  rocks. 

As  I  said,  the  winds  do  most  work  in  dry  and  desert  re- 
gions, but  when  you  remember  that  over  a  fifth  of  the 
globe  is  just  that — dry  as  a  bone  most  of  the  time — you 
see  this  is  a  great  field.  It  has  been  so  from  the  beginning, 
for  it  is  thought  probable  that  there  was  always  about  the 
same  proportion  of  desert  lands.  Night  and  day  the  winds 
have  been  busy  through  all  these  ages.  Dust  is  carried 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S  WORK       45 

up  by  ascending  air  currents.  Then  the  same  force  that 
keeps  the  earth  in  its  orbit — gravity — pulls  down  on  a 
grain  of  dust.  But  its  fall  is  checked  by  the  friction  of 
the  air.  You  see  there's  a  lot  of  mechanics  involved  in 
moving  a  grain  of  dust;  and  Nature  goes  about  it  as  if  it 
were  the  most  serious  business  in  the  world;  handles  every 


Courtesy  of  The  Dunham  Company. 

TO  KEEP  MOISTURE  AND   SOIL  AT  HOME 

In  the  broad  fields  of  the  West,  where  "dry-farming"  is  practised,  they  have  these  huge 
machines.  They  are  called  "Cultipackers."  They  are  cultivators  with  big,  broad-brimmed 
wheels  that  pack  the  surface  of  the  soil  after  the  blades  of  the  cultivator  have  stirred  it. 
This  not  only  prevents  the  moisture  in  the  soil  from  evaporating  as  fast  as  it  would  otherwise 
do,  but  keeps  the  winds  from  carrying  away  the  soil  itself. 

grain  as  if  the  future  of  the  universe  depended  on  it.  In 
the  case  of  sand  or  coarse  dust,  unless  the  winds  are  very 
strong,  gravity  soon  gets  the  best  of  it,  and  down  the  dust 
grain  comes  to  the  ground  again;  then  up  with  another 
current,  then  down  again — carried  far  by  stiff  breezes, 
only  a  short  distance  by  puffs — a  kind  of  hop,  skip,  and 
jump.  But  fine  dust  getting  a  good  lift  into  the  upper  cur- 
rents at  the  start  may  stay  in  the  air  for  weeks. 

In  very  wild  wind-storms  it  has  been  figured  out  that 
there  may  be  as  much  as  126,000  tons  of  dust  per  cubic 
mile;  several  good  farms  in  the  air  at  once,  over  every 
square  mile  of  the  earth  below! 


46    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 
III.    THE  STORM  PLOUGHS  OF  THE  WIND 

TWO   KINDS    OF   WOODEN   PLOUGHS 

They  use  wooden  ploughs,  these  winds,  just  as  primitive 
man  did,  and  as  primitive  peoples  do  now;  but  not  quite 
in  the  same  way,  and  the  ploughing  they  do  is  much 
better.  For  man's  wooden  plough  is  a  crooked  stick  made 
from  the  branches  of  a  tree  while  the  winds  use  the  whole 
tree — roots  and  all,  and  both  on  mountainsides  and  on 
level  lands  the  amount  of  ploughing  they  do  is  immense. 

Almost  all  forests  are  liable  to  occasional  hurricanes 
which  lay  the  trees  over  thousands  of  acres  in  one  immense 
swath.  A  large  number  of  these  trees,  owing  to  their 
strong  trunks,  do  not  break  off  but  uproot,  lifting  great 
sheets  of  earth.  Soon,  by  the  action  of  its  own  weight  and 
the  elements,  this  soil  falls  back.  The  depth  to  which  this 
natural  ploughing  is  done  depends,  of  course,  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  tree,  but  as  it  is  the  older  and  larger  trees  that 
are  most  likely  to  be  overturned,  since  they  spread  more 
surface  to  the  wind,  the  ploughing  is  much  deeper  than 
men  do  with  ordinary  ploughs. 

The  result  is  that  new  unused  soil  is  constantly  being 
brought  to  the  surface;  and  not  only  this,  but  air  is  intro- 
duced into  the  soil  far  below  the  point  reached  by  ordinary 
ploughing.  The  soil  needs  air  just  as  we  do;  for  the  air 
hurries  the  decay  of  the  soil  and  its  preparation  for  the 
uses  of  the  plant.  The  immediate  purpose  of  ploughing 
is  to  loosen  the  soil  so  that  the  roots  of  the  plants  can  get 
their  food  and  air  more  easily.  It  also  helps  to  keep  the 
fields  fertile  by  exposing  the  lower  soil  to  more  rapid  decay. 

But  here's  the  trouble:  While  the  ordinary  plough  intro- 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S   WORK       47 

duces  air  into  the  soil  for  a  few  inches  from  the  surface, 
the  subsoil,  which  is  very  important  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  plant,  is  practically  left  out  of  it,  so  far  as  getting  needed 
fresh  air  is  concerned.  The  long  roots  of  the  trees  that, 
among  other  things  opened  for  it  channels  to  the  air,  are 
gone.  The  burrowing  animals  that  used  to  loosen  up  the 
earth,  man  has  driven  away.  More  than  that,  the  foot  of 
the  plough  which  has  to  press  heavily  on  the  subsoil  in 


HOW  THE   SOIL   GETS   ITS   BREATH 

Plants  must  have  air  to  breathe,  both  above  and  below  the  soil,  and  the  microscope  is  show- 
ing us  here  how  a  sandy  loam  allows  the  air  to  reach  the  roots. 


order  to  turn  the  furrow,  smears  and  compacts  the  earth 
into  a  hard  layer,  which  shuts  out  the  air,  and  also — to  a 
certain  extent — the  water  from  the  lower  levels. 

In  mountain  regions  these  ''storm  ploughs,"  as  we  may 
call  them,  not  only  help  to  renew  and  prepare  the  soil  in 
the  valleys,  but  are  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  delivery  of 
new  soil  from  mountain  to  valley.  When  trees  on  the 
mountainside  are  overturned,  they  not  only  bring  up  the 
soil,  which  the  mountain  rains  quickly  carry  to  the  valleys, 
but  the  roots  having  penetrated — as  they  always  do — into 
the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  bring  up  stones  already  partly 


48    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

decayed  by  the  acids  of  the  roots.  These  stones,  as  the 
roots  die,  decay  and  so  release  their  hold,  and  also  go 
tumbling  down  toward  the  valley. 

Consider  how  much  of  this  storm-ploughing  must  be 
done  in  the  forests  of  the  world  in  a  single  year,  and  that 
this  has  been  going  on  ever  since  trees  grew  big  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  In  a  storm  in  the  woods  of  California, 
Muir  heard  trees  falling  at  the  rate  of  one  every  two  or 
three  minutes.  And,  as  I  said,  it  is  precisely  the  trees  that 
can  do  the  most  ploughing — the  older  and  larger  trees — 
that  are  most  apt  to  go  down  before  the  wind.  Younger 
trees  will  bend  while  older  and  stiffer  trees  hold  on  to  the 
last.  Before  a  mountain  gale,  pines,  six  feet  in  diameter, 
will  bend  like  grass.  But  when  the  roots,  long  and  strong 
as  they  are,  can  no  longer  resist  the  prying  of  the  mighty 
lever — the  trunk  with  its  limbs  and  branches — swaying  in 
the  winds,  down  go  the  old  giants  with  crashes  that  shake 
the  hills.  After  a  violent  gale  the  ground  is  covered  thick 
with  fallen  trunks 1  that  lie  crossed  like  storm-lodged  wheat. 

There  are  two  trees,  however,  Muir  says,  that  are  never 
blown  down  so  long  as  they  continue  in  good  health.  These 
are  the  juniper  and  dwarf  pine  of  the  summit  peaks. 

"Their  stout,  crooked  roots  grip  the  storm-beaten  ledges  like 
eagle's  claws,  while  their  lithe,  cord-like  branches  bend  round 
completely,  offering  but  slight  holds  for  winds,  however  violent." 

AT   THE    STORM   FESTIVAL   WITH  MR.    MUIR 

Trees  were  among  Muir's  best  friends,  and  he  spent  a 
large  part  of  his  life  chumming  with  them.  What  do  you 

1  Muir:  "  Mountains  of  California." 


THE   WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S   WORK       49 

think  that  man  did  once?  He  was  always  doing  such 
things.  He  climbed  a  tree  in  a  ter.rinc  gale  so  that  he 
could  see  right  into  the  heart  of  the  storm  and  watch 
everything  that  was  going  on.  Just  hear  him  tell  about  it: 


THREE  KINDS  OF  SEED  THAT  THE  WIND  SHAKES  FREE 
Here  are  three  kinds  of  seed  adapted  for  dispersal  by  the  shaking  action  of  the  wind. 

3o-  §§"/ 

''After  cautiously  casting  about  I  made  choice  of  the  tallest  of 
a  group  of  Douglas  spruces  that  were  growing  close  together  like 
a  tuft  of  grass,  no  one  of  which  seemed  likely  to  fall  unless  the  rest 
fell  with  it.  Being  accustomed  to  climb  trees  in  making  botanical 
studies,  I  experienced  no  difficulty  in  reaching  the  top  of  this  one, 
and  never  before  did  I  enjoy  so  noble  an  exhilaration  of  motion." 

And  such  odors !  These  winds  had  come  all  the  way 
from  the  sea,  over  beds  of  flowers  in  the  mountain  meadows 
of  the  Sierras;  then  across  the  plains  and  up  the  foot-hills 
and  into  the  piny  woods  "with  all  the  varied  incense 
gathered  by  the  way." 

Though  comparatively  young,  these  trees — the  one  Mr. 


50    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Muir  climbed  into  and  its  neighbors — were  about  100  feet 
high,  and  "their  lithe,  brushy  tops  were  rocking  and  swirl- 
ing in  wild  ecstasy."  In  its  greatest  sweeps  the  top  of 


TYPES  OF  FLYING  MACHINE 

Here  is  the  type  of  flying  machine  that  carries  men.     On  the  opposite  page  is  the  kind 
that  carries  the  dandelion  seeds. 


Muir's  tree  described  an  arc  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  de- 
grees, but  he  felt  sure  it  wouldn't  break,  and  so  he  pro- 
ceeded to  take  in  the  great  storm  show. 

"Now  my  eye  roved  over  the  piny  hills  and  dales  as  over  fields 
of  waving  grain,  and  felt  the  light  running  in  ripples  across  the 
valleys  from  ridge  to  ridge,  as  the  shining  foliage  was  stirred  by 
the  waves  of  air.  Oftentimes  these  waves  of  reflected  light  would 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S  WORK   51 

break  up  suddenly  into  a  kind  of  beaten  foam  and  finally  disappear 
on  some  hillside,  like  sea  waves  on  a  shelving  shore." 

This  was  his  impression  of  the  forest  as  a  whole,  a  dark 
green  sea  of  tossing  waves.     But  if  we  study  trees  as  long 


THE  DANDELION-SEED  FLYING  MACHINE 

The  dandelion  on  the  left  shows  how  the  seeds  are  kept  in  the  "hangar"  at  night  and  on 
rainy  days,  shut  up  tight  to  prevent  them  from  getting  wet  with  rain  or  dew  and  so  made 
unfit  for  flying. 


and  lovingly  as  Muir  did,  we  can  pick  out  the  different 
members  of  the  family  a  mile  away — even  several  miles 
away — by  their  gestures,  their  style  of  grave  and  graceful 
dancing  in  the  wind. 

Muir  especially  mentions  the  sugar-pines  as  interpreting 
that  storm  to  him.  They  seemed  to  be  roused  by  the 
wildest  bursts  of  the  wind  music  to  a  "passionate  exhilara- 
tion," as  if  saying  "Oh,  what  a  glorious  day  this  is!" 


52     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

This  was  the  picture  part  of  it — the  glorious  moving- 
picture  show.  Now  listen  to  some  of  the  music: 

"The  sounds  of  the  storm  corresponded  gloriously  with  the  wild 
exuberance  of  light  and  motion.  The  profound  bass  of  the  naked 
branches  and  holes  booming  like  waterfalls,  the  quick,  tense  vibra- 
tions of  the  pine-needles,  now  rising  to  a  shrill,  whistling  hiss,  now 
falling  to  a  silky  murmur.  The  rustling  of  laurel  groves  in  the 
dells,  and  the  keen  metallic  click  of  leaf  on  leaf — all  this  was  heard 
in  easy  analysis  when  the  attention  was  calmly  bent. 

"Even  when  the  grand  anthem  had  swelled  to  its  highest  pitch  I 
could  distinctly  hear  the  varying  tones  of  individual  trees — spruce, 
fir,  pine,  and  oak — and  even  the  infinitely  gentle  rustle  of  the 
withered  grasses  at  my  feet." 

When  the  winds  began  to  fall  and  the- sky  to  clear,  Muir 
climbed  down  and  made  his  way  back  home. 

"The  storm  tones  died  away,  and  turning  toward  the  east  I 
beheld  the  countless  hosts  of  the  forests  hushed  and  tranquil, 
towering  above  one  another  on  the  slopes  of  the  hills  like  a  devout 
audience.  The  setting  sun  filled  them  with  amber  light,  and 
seemed  to  say  while  they  listened: 

"'My  peace  I  give  unto  you.'" 

HIDE   AND   SEEK  IN   THE   LIBRARY 

Did  you  know  that  the  ash  and  maple  seeds  actually  have  screw- 
propellers,  like  a  ship,  so  that  they  can  ride  on  the  wind?  Petti- 
grew's  great  work,  "Design  in  Nature,"  makes  this  very  plain, 
both  in  word  and  picture. 

In  what  way  does  the  wind  help  to  produce  the  seed  of  grasses 
as  well  as  carry  and  plant  them  ?  (Any  encyclopaedia  or  botany 
will  tell  you  how  plants  are  fertilized.) 


THE  WINDS  AND  THE  WORLD'S  WORK   53 

How  could  a  tempest  that  blew  down  a  tree  help  its  seeds  to  get 
a  start  ?  Wallace,  in  his  "  World  of  Life,"  says  that  on  a  full-grown 
oak  or  beech  there  may  be  100,000  seeds  that  are  thus  given  a 
better  chance  of  life. 

Speaking  of  "wind  ploughs,"  what  is  the  object  of  ploughing 
anyway?  The  article  on  preparing  the  seed  bed  in  "The  Country 
Life  Reader"  tells  about  what  ploughing  means  to  the  soil  and  also: 

Why  good  soil  takes  up  more  room  than  poor. 

Why  it  is  a  good  thing  to  plough  deep,  but  a  bad  thing,  if  you 
don't  do  it  just  right. 

And  farther  on  there  is  a  most  inspiring  poem  about  the  history 
of  the  plough  from  the  days  of  early  Egypt  to  the  present.  It 
begins  like  this: 

"  From  Egypt  behind  my  oxen, 

With  their  stately  step  and  slow, 
Northward  and  east  and  west  I  went, 

To  the  desert  and  the  snow; 
Down  through  the  centuries,  one  by  one, 

Turning  the  clod  to  the  shower, 
Till  there's  never  a  land  beneath  the  sun 

But  has  blossomed  behind  my  power." 

The  deserts  have  helped  to  make  western  China  fertile.  How 
did  they  do  it  ?  (Look  at  your  geography  map  and  remember  that 
the  prevailing  winds  of  the  world  are  westerly.) 

You'll  find  many  interesting  things  about  the  winds  and  the  soil 
in  Keffer's  "Nature  Studies  on  the  Farm"  and  Shaler's  "Outlines 
of  Earth's  History."  Shaler's  "Man  and  the  Earth"  says  a  single 
gale  may  blow  away  more  soil  from  an  unprotected  field  than  could 
be  made  in  a  geological  age,  and  an  hour's  rain  may  carry  off  more 
than  would  pass  away  in  a  thousand  years  if  the  land  were  in  its 
natural  state.  He  also  tells  what  to  do  to  prevent  the  best  part 
of  ploughed  fields  from  being  carried  off  by  the  wind. 

Have  you  any  idea  how  far  seed  may  be  carried  by  a  hurricane  ? 
Wallace,  in  his  "Darwinism"  deals  with  this  question,  and  it's 
very  important  in  the  story  of  the  earth.  Seal's  admirably  written 
and  illustrated  little  book  on  "Seed  Dispersal"  tells  a  world  of 
interesting  things  about  the  wind  as  a  sower.  For  instance: 

How  pigweed  seeds  are  built  so  that  wind  can  help  them  toboggan 
on  snow  or  float  on  water; 


54    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

How  wind  and  water  work  together  in  the  distribution  of  seeds; 

About  seeds  that  ride  in  an  ice-boat; 

About  the  monoplane  of  the  basswood; 

About  the  "flail"  of  the  button  wood,  and  how  the  wind  helps 
it  to  whip  out  the  seeds;  and  how  the  seeds  then  open  their  para- 
chutes. 

Dandelions  go  through  quite  a  remarkable  process  in  preparing 
for  flight.  I  wonder  if  you  have  ever  noticed  it.  Before  the  seeds 
get  ripe  Mother  Dandelion  blankets  them  at  night  and  puts  a  rain- 
cloak  on  them  on  rainy  days,  and  just  won't  let  them  get  out,  as 
shown  on  page  51.  And  do  you  know  how  she  opens  the  flowers 
for  the  bees  on  sunshiny  days? 

There  is  no  island,  no  matter  how  remote,  that  isn't  supplied 
with  insects.  How  do  you  suppose  they  get  there?  You  may  be 
sure  the  wind  has  something  to  do  with  it  or  I  wouldn't  mention 
the  subject  at  the  end  of  this  chapter.  (Wallace:  "Darwinism.") 


THE  WEST  WINDS  AND  THE  RAINS 

On  the  western  slopes  of  this  mountain  the  trees,  with  the  help  of  the  winds  and  the  rain, 
climb  to  the  very  summit,  while  the  other  side  of  the  mountain  remains  only  a  barren  rock. 
The  moisture-laden  winds  from  the  west  glide  up  the  slope,  the  air  expands  as  it  rises,  the 
expansion  cools  it  and  down  comes  the  rain !  But  the  eastern  slope  gets  little  or  none  of  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

(APRIL) 

The  higher  Nilus  swells 

The  more  it  promises;  as  it  ebbs,  the  seedsman 
Upon  the  slime  and  ooze  scatters  his  grain, 
And  shortly  comes  the  harvest. 

— Shakespere:  "Antony  and  Cleopatra." 

THE   BOTTOM-LANDS 

All  that  wind  was  bound  to  blow  up  rain.  I  said  so  at 
the  time.  And,  sure  enough,  here  it  is;  right  where  we 
want  it,  at  the  beginning  of  April,  a  month  famous  for  its 
rains. 

55 


56    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

The  work  of  the  rains  is  going  to  make  one  of  the  most 
interesting  chapters  in  the  long  story  of  the  dust.  At  least 
I  hope  so.  But  don't  think  I  intend  to  tell  it  all.  Why, 
it  would  make  a  whole  book  in  itself.  But  you  can  be- 
lieve every  single  thing  I  do  tell,  no  matter  how  it  makes 
you  open  your  eyes;  for,  if  I've  helped  it  rain  once  I've 
helped  it  rain  a  million  times ! 

I.     THE  MARCH  DUST  AND  THE  APRIL  RAINS 

HOW   RAIN   GOES   UP   BEFORE   IT   COMES   DOWN 

It's  this  way:  You  remember  how  you  can  "see  your 
breath,"  as  we  say,  on  a  cold  morning?  Well,  that's  be- 
cause the  moisture  in  your  breath  is  condensed  by  the  cold. 
Now  as  the  waters  of  the  earth — the  seas,  lakes,  rivers, 
ponds,  and  so  on — are  warmed  by  the  sun,  the  air  above 
them  is  filled  with  moisture,  for  the  heating  of  the  air 
causes  it  to  expand  and  draw  in  moisture  from  the  water 
like  a  sponge.  Expansion  makes  it  lighter  also,  and  it 
rises.  Rising,  it  turns  cooler,  and  the  moisture  condenses 
and  comes  down  as  rain.  Mountains  usually  have  clouds 
around  them  because  moist  air  striking  the  mountainside 
is  driven  up  the  slope,  cooling  as  it  rises.  So  rain  and  snow 
fall  often  in  mountain  regions,  and  that's  why  so  many 
rivers  rise  in  mountains.  The  moist  air  is  also  condensed 
when  it  meets  other  and  cooler  air  currents.  But  right 
here  is  where  the  work  of  the  dust  comes  in.  For  to  make 
rain  you've  got  to  have  clouds,  and  clouds  are  due  to  this 
moisture  collecting  around  the  little  particles  of  dust  of 
which  the  air  is  full.  When  these  little  motes  of  matter 
become  cooler  than  the  air  that  touches  them  the  moisture 


THE   BOTTOM-LANDS  57 

in  the  air  condenses  into  a  film  of  water  around  them. 
Fairy  worlds  with  fairy  oceans  floating  in  the  sky ! 

Each  of  these  baby  worlds  is  falling  toward  the  big 
world  below.  But  very  slowly;  only  a  few  feet  a  day,  so 
that  even  if  nothing  happened  it  might  be  months — yes, 
years — before  it  would  come  to  the  ground,  even  in  still 
air.  But  when  air  is  very  thick  with  moisture  the  water 
films  on  these  dust  particles  grow  rapidly,  and  thus  in- 
creasing in  weight,  they  fall  faster  and  faster,  and  finally 
strike  the  earth  as  raindrops. 

But  here's  another  thing  that  helps.  On  the  way  down 
two  or  more  raindrops,  falling  in  with  each  other,  will  go 
into  partnership — melt  into  one — -and  then  they  hurry 
down  so  much  the  faster.  That's  why  the  sky  grows  darker 
and  darker  just  before  a  rain,  and  why  the  lower  part  of  a 
rain-cloud  is  the  darkest:  the  little  raindrops  are  forming 
into  bigger  raindrops  as  they  fall. 

THE    LITTLE    ARTISTS    THAT    SHAPE    THE    CLOUDS 

But  the  shapes  of  clouds  are  supposed  to  be  due  to  an- 
other thing,  the  mysterious  force  we  call  electricity,  and 
that  other  mysterious  force  we  call  gravity.  Just  as  the 
worlds  attract  each  other  by  gravity  so  these  raindrops — 
or  dust  grains  growing  into  raindrops — are  drawn  toward 
one  another.  Here's  where  Electricity  steps  in.  These 
rain  particles  are  full  of  electricity  and  when  two  of  these 
electrified  particles  meet  in  the  air — unless  they  strike  one 
another  in  falling,  in  which  case,  as  I  said  a  moment  ago, 
they  blend  into  one — they  get  very  close  together  and  yet 
keep  dancing  around  one  another  without  touching !  It 
is  this  dancing  about  that  makes  all  those  strange  and 


58    THE   ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

beautiful  and  ever-changing  forms  in  the  vast  picture- 
gallery  of  the  sky. 

Of  course  the  wind  currents  help  to  change  these  shapes, 
but  I'm  talking  about  the  original  designs. 


II.     THE  RAINDROPS  AND  THE  RIVER  MILLS 

So  much  for  the  dust  that  helps  make  raindrops;  now 
for  the  raindrops  that  help  make  dust.  This  the  raindrops 
do  in  several  ways.  Falling  on  big  rocks  or  decaying  peb- 
bles, for  example,  they  pound  loose  with  their  patter, 
patter,  patter,  any  little  bits  of  soil  and  grains  of  sand  that 
have  been  made  by  the  other  soil  makers — the  sun,  the 
wind,  the  lichens,  the  chemists  of  the  air,  and  so  on.  This 
soil  and  these  sand  particles,  if  there  is  already  any  depth 
of  earth  there,  they  carry  down  into  the  ground.  Some 
of  this  soil,  with  various  stops  and  mixings  with  other 
soils  on  the  way,  finally  reaches  the  sea,  where  it  helps  to 
make  the  rich  limestone  soils  for  the  Kentuckies  of  mil- 
lenniums yet  to  be,  by  supplying  food  for  sea  creatures  and 
lime  for  their  shells.  For  these  shells  become  limestone 
when  the  shell-fish  are  through  with  them.  Mother  Na- 
ture, in  addition  to  feeding  her  big,  hungry  families  of 
to-day  in  the  plant  and  animal  world,  is  always  laying  by 
something  for  the  future.  But  before  it  gets  back  to  the 
sea,  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  ground-up  soil  the  rivers 
carry  is  spread  out  in  the  lowlands  in  those  "alluvial 
plains"  your  geography  tells  about  and  that  make  a  large 
proportion  of  the  fertile  farms  of  the  world.  If  the  rain- 
drops fall  on  comparatively  barren  rock — in  the  mountains, 
say — they  carry  some  of  this  fresh  soil  to  the  mountain  val- 
leys below,  and  some  of  it  they  may  spread  in  bottom- 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS  59 

lands  a  thousand  miles  away,  where  the  new  soil  helps  feed 
the  plants.     The  sand  grains  in  it  not  only  help  the  soil  to 
get  its  breath  by  making  little  air  spaces,  but  these  sand 
grains  themselves  slowly  decay  and  so  make  more  soil. 
But  it  isn't  alone  that  they  carry  away  the  soil  already 


WHAT  IRRIGATION  DOES  FOR  DESERTS 

It  is  such  land  as  this,  in  the  arid  regions  of  the  West,  that  irrigation  converts  from  a 
desert  to  a  garden  of  abundance.     The  soil  is  rich  in  all  the  substances  that  plant  life  needs. 

made  and  bury  the  sand  grains.  Some  of  the  raindrops 
soak  into  cracks  in  stones  and  dissolve  the  material  that 
binds  the  rock  particles  together,  and  so  get  them  ready 
to  give  way  under  the  fairy  hammers  of  the  next  showe'r 
that  comes  along. 

After  Nature  finally  gets  an  original  waste  of  barren 
rock  all  nicely  set  with  grass  and  flowers  and  trees  and 
things,  the  raindrops  help  to  make  soil  in  still  another  way. 
Soaking  through  the  decaying  leaves,  they  pick  up  acids 
which  are  just  the  thing  for  eating  into  rock  and  crumbling 


60    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

it  into  soil.  To  be  sure,  the  water  soaking  into  the  soil 
and  coming  out  of  springs  carries  some  plant  food  away 
with  it;  but  it  takes  it  to  lands  farther  down  the  river  val- 
leys, and  more  than  makes  up  for  what  it  carries  away  by 
the  new  soil  made  by  its  acids  from  the  rocks,  as  it  soaks 
into  their  pores  and  runs  among  the  cracks. 

HOW   RAINDROPS   MANAGE   TO    GRIND   UP   THE   ROCKS 

Moreover,  raindrops  actually  grind  up  rocks.  In  order 
to  do  this  a  lot  of  raindrops  have  to  get  together,  to  be 
sure,  and  become  rivers;  but  after  all  it's  the  raindrops 
that  do  it.  There'd  never  be  any  rivers  if  it  weren't  for 
the  rains  and,  of  course,  the  snows. 

Well,  anyhow,  the  rivers,  besides  running  other  people's 
mills,  have  mills  of  their  own;  and  millstones.  Most  of 
these  stones  originally  came  from  mountains  and  were 
brought  into  the  milling  business  by  mountain  streams, 
with  the  help  of  Jack  Frost.  For  the  frost  not  only  pries 
stones  from  the  mountains  and  so  sends  them  tumbling 
down  the  slopes,  but  it  keeps  edging  them  along  and  edging 
them  along,  farther  down,  after  they  have  fallen.  You'd 
hardly  think  that,  would  you?  Yet  it's  simple  enough. 
The  water  in  the  pores  of  the  "rock  expands  when  it  freezes 
and  that  makes  the  whole  rock  expand,  for  the  time  being. 
Then  when  the  frozen  water  in  the  rock  pores  thaws  out, 
the  rock  contracts,  and  this  spreading  out  and  pulling  to- 
gether, small  as  it  is,  causes  the  rock  to  keep  hitching  along 
down  the  incline;  oh,  say  a  fraction  of  an  inch  a  year. 
But  still,  in  the  course  of  the  ages,  these  inches  foot  up, 
and  after  a  while  this  tortoise-like  gait  lands  the  stone — 
lands  tens  of  thousands  of  such  stones — in  the  beds  of  the 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS  61 

mountain  torrents  that  run  along  at  the  bottom  of  these 
inclines.  There  they  get  ground  together  and  so  grind 
out  more  soil  material,  particularly  when  the  floods  are  on, 


AN  OLD  RIVER  MILL 

It  used  to  do  a  lot  of  business — this  old  river  mill.  Its  grist  was  ground-up  rock  tLat 
helped  make  fine  farming  land  in  the  bottoms  along  the  river's  course.  Such  mills,  called 
"pot  holes,"  are  found  in  the  rocky  floors  of  rapid  streams,  where  the  eddying  current  or  the 
water  of  a  waterfall  wears  depressions  in  the  bed.  Into  these  depressions  stones  are  washed, 
and  then  by  the  whirl  of  the  flowing  water  kept  going  round  and  round,  grinding  themselves 
away  and  grinding  out  the  sides  and  bottom  of  the  mill. 

with  the  melting  of  the  snows  in  spring  and  the  falling  of 
the  heavy  and  frequent' rains. 

Another  curious  thing  is  how  the  river  mills  help  them- 
selves to  new  millstones  when  they  need  them.  If  a  river 
hasn't  enough  for  its  work,  it  has  a  way  of  drawing  on  its 
banks  for  moie.  Whenever  the  stones  in  its  bed  get  scarce, 
so  that  it  can  make  comparatively  little  new  soil — having 
so  few  stones  to  grind  together — it  proceeds  to  dig  its  own 
bed  deeper,  since  this  bed  is  no  longer  protected  by  a 


62     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

rock  pavement  in  the  bottom.     This,  of  course,  deepens 
its  channel,  and  so  adds  to  the  steepness  of  the  slope  of  its 
banks.     Then,  owing  to  this  increase  in  the  incline  of  the 
slope,  more  rocks  tumble  in,  and  the  "milling  business", 
picks  up  again. 

THE  GOVERNOR  IN  THE  RIVER  MILL 

But  there  may  be  too  much  of  a  good  thing;  the  rocks 
may  come  in  faster  than  the  river  mill  can  take  care  of 
them.  Then  the  river  bottom  becomes  so  completely 
paved  over  that  the  channel  stops  wearing  down  at  all, 
to  speak  of,  and  the  river  remains  at  the  same  level  until 
the  rains  and  the  wind  and  other  workers  have  worn  the 
banks  down  and  lessened  the  incline.  Then,  with  fewer 
and  fewer  fresh  stones  tumbling  in,  the  river  gets  a  chance 
to  catch  up  with  its  work. 

It  is  this  ground-up  rock  stuff  of  the  mountain  river 
mills,  made  by  the  grinding  of  the  running  streams  all  the 
way  down,  that  has  helped  form  the  rich  bottom-lands  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley.  For  uncounted  ages,  the  water  of 
the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  have  been  at  work,  and 
by  the  time  you  get  down  into  southern  Louisiana  you  come 
to  the  delta  where  this  rich  soil  has  been  piled  up  for  more 
than  i  ,000  feet  above  the  bottom  of  the  old  Mediterranean 
Sea,  that  used  to  reach  north  and  south  across  the  country. 

You  remember  the  lines,  don't  you: 

"Little  drops  of  water,  little  grains  of  sand 
Make  the  mighty  ocean  and  the  pleasant  land." 

Well,  this  is  how  they  do  it;  all  this  that  I've  been  telling 
you. 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS 


Courtt sy  of  the  Scientific  American. 

THOUSANDS  OF  FARMS  POURED  INTO  THE  GULF 

The  Father  of  Waters  is  a  good  farmer  in  some  respects  but  needs  training  in  others.  The 
Mississippi's  floods,  like  those  of  Father  Nile,  enrich  the  bottom  lands,  but  the  river  is  apt 
to  break  all  bounds  and  do  a  lot  of  damage.  Moreover,  every  year  it  carries  away  thousands 
of  acres  of  good  soil  and  pours  it  into  the  Gulf.  How  to  teach  the  Mississippi  to  work  in 
harness,  as  the  Nile  has  been  taught  to  do  in  recent  years,  is  one  of  the  problems  which  will 
require  all  of  Uncle  Sam's  ingenuity  and  skill  to  solve.  A  good  deal  of  the  yearly  waste  could 
be  prevented,  however,  by  the  various  means  employed  by  good  farmers. 


64     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


WHERE  THE  RIVERS  ACT  AS  BANKERS 

Here  is  a  fine  piece  of  bottom  land,  one  of  those  "banks"  where  the  rivers  keep  "checking 
accounts"  for  the  farmers  and  the  sea;  using  pebbles  for  currency,  as  explained  in  this  chapter. 


III.    How  THE  RIVERS  ACT  AS  BANKERS  FOR  THE 
FARMERS  AND  THE  SEA 

We  speak  of  river  banks  and  the  kind  of  banks  that 
handle  those  promissory  notes  our  arithmetics  tell  about 
as  if  they  were  entirely  different;  and  so  they  are,  I  sup- 
pose, if  one  just  looks  at  the  surface  of  the  thing.  But  if 
we  dig  into  the  subject  a  little  we  shall  see  that  they  are 
much  alike  in  the  fact  that  one  of  the  principal  businesses 
of  both  kinds  of  banks  is  to  make  loans  at  interest.  Men's 
banks  loan  money,  to  be  sure,  while  the  river  banks  loan 
pebbles,  but  if  it  were  not  for  these  pebble  loans  there 
would  be  a  mighty  sight  less  money  for  the  banks  to  loan, 
or  the  farmer  to  borrow;  and  the  way  both  banks  do  busi- 
ness ought  to  be  a  good  lesson  to  certain  farmers  I  know, 
who  seem  to  think  they  can  always  be  cashing  checks  on 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS  65 

their  banks — the  farm  lands — by  hauling  away  the  crops 
without  ever  putting  anything  back. 

HOW   THE   RIVERS   PLACE   PEBBLES    ON   DEPOSIT 

The  rivers  make  loans  to  the  soil  by  depositing  pebbles 
in  the  broad  bottom-lands  along  their  banks,  and  then 
draw  interest  by  carrying  along  to  other  lands,  from 
time  to  time,  some  of  the  fine  rich  soil  these  pebbles  help 
make  by  their  decay.  And  the  river  does  this  in  regular 
banking  style,  ''checking  out"  the  pebbles  from  time  to 
time,  and  then  depositing  other  pebbles  in  their  places. 
Take  the  banks  and  bottom-lands  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
for  example.  It  has  been  estimated  that  it  requires  about 
40,000  years  for  a  pebble  to  make  the  journey  to  the  Gulf 
from  the  mountains  of  a  tributary  stream  where  it  was 
first  broken  from  the  rock  as  a  sharp  fragment. 

The  first  part  of  the  journey  in  the  mountains  is  over 
steep  down  grades,  and  so  is  comparatively  fast,  but  as  the 
river  gets  farther  from  the  mountains,  the  slope  of  its  bed 
becomes  less  and  less,  the  onward  movement  is  slower  and 
slower,  and  more  of  the  pebbles  stop  to  rest.  In  times  of 
flood  they  are  carried  far  away  from  the  regular  channel 
and  spread  over  the  wide  flood-plain  of  the  river.  Then, 
as  the  flood  goes  down,  they  are  left  buried  there  under  a 
coating  of  mud.  So  buried,  they  decay  and  enrich  the  soil. 
Then  the  next  flood  that  comes  along  sweeps  the  pebbles 
with  it — checks  them  .put  of  the  bank — but  at  the  same 
time  carries  away  not  only  some  of  the  soil  richness  which 
these  pebbles  helped  to  make  but  the  soil  material  made 
by  the  decay  of  the  vegetation  these  pebbles  thus  helped 
to  grow,  such  as  the  roots  and  blades  of  wheat  and  corn 


66    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

and  stubble  and  chaff  left  in  the  fields.  That's  the  inter- 
est on  the  loan.  Then,  when  the  flood  subsides,  the  peb- 
bles are  again  deposited  farther  along  in  the  river's  course, 
but  meanwhile  the  same  flood  has  brought  fresh  deposits 
of  pebbles  from  up-stream,  and  these  are  left  in  place  of 
those  taken  away. 

RIVER   BANKING  AND   HUMAN   CIVILIZATION 

This  banking  business  has  been  going  on  for  ages  and 
is  a  very  important  part  of  the  history  of  civilization. 
Here  and  there  along  the  sides  of  the  older  and  larger  river 
valleys  are  found  the  remains  of  ancient  plains.  These 
plains  are  now,  many  of  them,  quite  a  distance  above  the 
level  of  the  stream.  This  means  that  they  were  at  one 
time  the  bottom-lands  of  that  same  stream,  but  the  stream, 
as  it  dug  deeper  and  deeper  into  its  bed,  grew  narrower, 
and  so  abandoned  its  old  flood-plains.  As  savage  man 
gradually  settled  down  and  took  to  farming,  he  found  these 
bottom-lands,  with  their  rich,  mellow  soil,  just  the  thing 
for  his  crooked-sticks  and  stone  hoes — the  only  kinds  of 
ploughs  and  hoes  there  were  in  those  days.  With  such 
crude  farming  tools  he  couldn't  have  managed  to  scratch 
a  living  on  any  other  kind  of  soil.  When  the  river  floods 
came  along,  all  these  crooked-stick  farmers  had  to  do  was 
to  keep  out  of  the  way  until  the  floods  went  down,  and 
there  were  their  fields  all  fertilized  for  them,  as  good  as 
new,  and  they  could  go  on  for  thousands  of  years  working 
the  same  fields  without  ever  bothering  their  heads  as  to 
whether  they  needed  any  lime  or  potash  or  nitrogen,  or 
anything;  for  they  didn't.  The  river  floods  attended  to 
all  that. 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS 


67 


FATHER  NILE  AND  THE  MAKING  OF  EGYPT 

"Egypt,"  said  Herodotus,  "is  the  gift  of  the  Nile";  and  it  is  true  so  far  as  her  fertile  lands 
are  concerned.  The  ancients  attributed  the  annual  floods  to  the  god  of  the  Nile,  as  shown 
in  that  statue  of  Father  Nile  in  the  Vatican.  Below  is  a  threshing  scene  in  Egypt  painted 
by  Gerome.  The  last  picture,  from  a  carving  in  the  tomb  of  an  Egyptian  noble,  shows  how 
they  ploughed  and  sowed  in  the  Pyramid  age. 


68    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

So,  in  course  of  time,  civilizations  such  as  those  of  Egypt 
and  India  and  Persia  grew  up,  and  in  further  course  of 
time  these  civilizations  spread  into  Europe,  and  finally  to 
the  New  World. 

HOW  RIVER  •BANKS  GO  BANKRUPT 

Now  all  this  is  very  well,  this  leaving  it  to  Nature  to  fer- 
tilize the  fields,  where  everything  is  just  right  for  it,  as  it 
is  along  the  Nile,  but  in  most  lands  it  won't  do  it  all. 
The  trouble  is  that,  in  raising  the  grain  foods,  the  ground 
must  be  kept  free  of  grass  and  weeds,  and  weh1  ploughed 
during  the  rainy  season.  But  the  same  rains  that  water 
the  fields  wash  more  or  less  good  soil  into  the  streams; 
much  more  than  Nature  alone  can  put  back.  For  instance, 
down  in  Italy  where,  if  the  old  forests  were  still  there,  the 
rains  wouldn't  wash  away  more  than  a  foot  of  soil  in  5,000 
years,  this  soil  is  being  carried  into  the  Po,  and  by  the 
Po  emptied  into  the  sea  so  fast — a  foot  in  less  than  1,000 
years — that  if  you  visit  Italy  to-day,  say,  and  then  go  back 
in  ten  years,  you'll  see  bare  rocks  on  many  a  hillside  that 
is  now  clothed  in  green.  On  such  rocks  the  soil  is  already 
thin,  and  in  ten  years  more  it  is  all  gone;  ah1  washed 
away !  This  thing  is  going  on  all  around  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  You  are  constantly  coming  on  sections 
of  country  that  used  to  be  covered  with  great  forests  and 
prosperous  farming  communities  where  the  soil  has  van- 
ished, and  many  stretches  of  barren,  rocky  land  where 
hardly  a  weed  can  find  a  foothold. 

"But,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?"  you  say.  "You 
can't  change  the  slope  of  the  hills,  can  you  ?  And  the  farmer 
has  got  to  plough  his  land — you  just  said  so  yourself." 

Yes,  he's  got  to  plough  his  land,  to  be  sure;  but  so  has 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS 


69 


he  got  to  have  pasture  for  his  live  stock.  If  he  hasn't  any 
live  stock,  that  just  shows  what  kind  of  a  farmer  he  is. 
Every  farmer  ought  to  have  live  stock.  Corn  always  brings 
a  great  deal  more  when  it  goes  to  market  "on  four  feet," 


WHAT  HAPPENS  TO  THE  LAND  WHEN  THE  TREES  ARE  GONE 

Could  anything  be  more  desolate?  You  can  see  from  this  example  how  vital  to  our 
national  life  is  the  forest  conservation  work  of  our  government.  Trees,  by  the  network  of 
their  roots,  keep  the  soil  from  washing  away,  retain  moisture  by  their  shade,  and  absorb  the 
water  of  the  rains  and  the  melting  snows  so  that  it  reaches  the  rivers  and  the  creeks  gradu- 
ally. But  when  the  trees  are  gone  the  water,  unchecked,  rushes  down  the  slopes  in  floods, 
washing  away  the  precious  soil  and  leaving  them  as  barren  as  a  desert. 


as  the  saying  is;  and,  besides,  the  live  stock  give  back  to 
the  fields,  in  the  shape  of  manure,  a  large  part  of  what  they 
eat.  Now,  if  you  have  live  stock  you  must  have  pasture, 
and  all  land  with  a  slope  of  more  than  one  foot  in  thirty 
should  be  used  partly  for  pasture  and  partly  to  grow  wood 
for  the  kitchen  stove,  and  hickory-nuts  and  walnuts  for 
winter  firesides.  Although  the  land  slopes,  the  mat  made 
by  the  grass  roots  will  keep  it  from  washing  away. 


yo    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

"But  suppose  you  lived  where  there  wasn't  any  land 
to  speak  of  that  didn't  tip  up;  in  New  England,  say — 
what  would  you  do  then?" 

Leave  the  upper  part  of  the  slopes  in  the  woods.  Then 
the  water  that  carries  off  the  soil  will  not  run  entirely 
away,  as  it  does  in  ploughed  fields,  but  will  creep  down 
slowly,  and,  charged  with  the  decay  of  the  woods,  help 
fertilize  the  lower  lands  and  change  the  rocks  beneath 
them  into  soil— the  acids  from  the  decaying  vegetable 
matter  eating  into  them. 

"But  still,"  you  say,  "there  are  farm  lands  that  must  be 
ploughed  even  if  they  do  wash  away;  they're  all  the  land 
a  man  has,  sometimes.  What  then?" 

Plough  deep.  Then  the  soil  soaks  up  more  of  the  rain 
and  lets  the  water  pass  away  in  clear  springs.  This  not 
only  saves  soil  but,  as  we  have  just  said,  helps  to  decompose 
the  subsoil  and  the  bed  rock. 

Then  there's  another  thing  that  good  farmers  do  in  such 
cases.  They  plough  ditches  along  the  hillside  leading  by  a 
gentle  slope  to  the  natural  watercourses;  so  the  water  of 
the  rains,  instead  of  going  down  the  hills  with  a  rush,  and 
going  faster  the  farther  it  runs — like  a  boy  on  a  toboggan 
— is  caught  and  checked  in  these  sloping  ditches,  and  much 
of  the  soil  it  contains  deposited  before  it  reaches  the  streams. 

The  best  way  of  all,  of  course,  is  to  build  terraces,  as 
they  do  in  the  thickly  settled  parts  of  Europe.  But  this 
is  only  profitable  for  the  more  valuable  crops  and  not  for 
ordinary  grains. 

SUCH   SPENDTHRIFTS   OF    GOD'S   GOOD    SOIL! 

My,  but  it's  a  shame  the  way  we've  wasted  soil  in  this 
country.  What  spendthrifts !  To  start  with — when  the 


THE  BOTTOM-LANDS  71 

country  was  first  settled— there  seemed  no  end  to  the  fine 
land,  and  every  one  could  have  a  good  farm  for  the  asking. 


HOW  THE  FRENCH  PROTECT  THEIR  HILLSIDE  FARMS 

This  is  how  the  French  peasant  keeps  the  mountain  torrents  from  carrying  off  his  precious 
soil. 

All  he  had  to  do  was  to  make  his  wants  known  to  Uncle 
Sam  and  then  go  out  and  help  himself.  What  happened 
then?  Why,  what  always  happens?  Easy  come,  easy 


72     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

go.  These  pioneer  farmers  worked  their  farms  for  all 
there  was  in  them;  didn't  bother,  many  of  them,  even  to 
haul  the  barn  manure  into  the  fields.  Then  when  the  old 


A  HOME  IN  THE  DESERT 

Doesn't  look  much  like  a  home  in  the  desert,  does  it?  But  it  is — a  lovely  home  in  what 
the  old  geographies  called  "The  Great  American  Desert."  In  the  Sahara  oases  are  few  and 
far  between,  but  modern  irrigation  engineering  makes  oases  to  order — thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  them ! 


farm  was  exhausted  they  moved  off  to  new  lands  and  did 
the  same  thing  over  again. 

They  ploughed  on  steep  hillsides;  they  allowed  gulches 
to  form,  as  they  will  quickly  do  on  sloping  ploughed  land, 
if  you  don't  watch  out;  they  cut  away  the  timber.  It's 
easy  in  a  hill  country  like  the  eastern  part  of  the  United 


THE   BOTTOM-LANDS  73 

States  to  have  all  the  good  top-soil  washed  away  in  twenty 
years  after  the  forests  have  been  destroyed;  the  good  soil 
that  it  probably  took  2,000  years  to  make. 

Doctor  Shaler1  estimated  that  in  the  States  south  of 
the  Ohio  and  the  James  Rivers  more  than  8,000  square 
miles  of  originally  fertile  land  had,  by  this  shiftless  and 
thoughtless  way  of  doing  things,  been  put  into  such  a 
state  that  it  wouldn't  grow  anything;  and  over  1,500 
square  miles  of  this,  actually  worn  down  to  the  subsoil, 
and  even  to  the  bed  rock,  so  that  it  may  never  be  profitable 
to  farm  again — at  least  not  in  our  time — no  matter  what 
they  do ! 

I  knew  a  farmer  with  a  small  son  to  whom  he  intended 
to  leave  the  farm  when  he  grew  up,  who  did  things  like 
that  for  twenty  years.  By  the  time  the  little  boy  was  old 
enough  to  vote,  there  was  no  farm  to  leave;  all  the  good 
part  of  it  was  gone. 

Serious  thing  for  that  little  boy,  wasn't  it? 

HIDE   AND   SEEK  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

What  have  burrowing  animals  to  do  with  the  drainage  system  of 
the  land?  (Keffer's  "Nature  Studies  on  the  Farm.") 

How  do  angleworms  help  drain  the  soil? 

How  do  the  forests  help  make  good  use  of  the  rain  that  falls,  not 
only  for  themselves  but  for  the  rest  of  us? 

How  do  the  rains  help  to  warm  the  ground  in  the  spring?  The 
heat  they  carry  into  the  soil  is  produced  in  two  ways.  The  book 
mentioned  above  tells  of  one  of  these  ways,  and  Russell's  little  book, 
"The  Story  of  the  Soil,"  tells  of  another. 

Beale's  "Seed  Dispersal"  tells  how  the  raindrops  (working  to- 
gether, of  course)  help  plant  maple,  elm,  sycamore,  willow,  and 
other  trees  that  grow  by  the  waterside,  to  scatter  their  seeds. 

You'd  be  surprised  what  a  series  of  adventures  the  seeds  of  a 

1  "Outlines  of  Earth's  History." 


74    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

bladderwort  have  before  they  get  planted  on  some  new  shore,  after 
having  left  the  parent  shrub.  First,  they  float  down-stream,  as 
you  know,  but  when  autumn  comes  on,  what  do  you  suppose  they 
do?  They  go  to  bed.  Where?  Right  in  the  bottom  of  the 
stream.  Then  how  do  they  ever  get  up  and  get  planted  on  the 
shore?  Well,  you  just  look  it  up  in  that  Beale  book  and  see. 

Do  you  know  how  the  rains  help  to  get  the  mineral  food  up  into 
the  plant  ? 

And  why  swamps  are  such  poor  producers? 

And  how  the  sun  acts  as  a  pump  for  the  plant  world? 

You  will  find  answers  to  all  these  questions  in  Shaler's  "Outlines 
of  Earth's  History"  and  in  your  books  on  botany  and  agriculture. 

Russell's  book  on  the  soil  tells  how  the  ancient  Gauls  and  Britons 
used  to  fertilize  their  land  with  marl,  and  how  the  tides  help  to  fer- 
tilize England.  It's  just  the  reverse  of  the  way  Father  Nile  looks 
after  Egypt,  as  you  will  see. 

If  you  want  to  read  an  interesting  description  of  the  difficulties 
of  farming  on  wet  lands,  you  will  find  it  in  this  meaty  little  book. 

If  you  don't  know  how  serious  a  thing  it  is  to  let  gullies  form  in 
land,  look  it  up  in  Shaler's  "Man  and  the  Earth"  and  you  will 
see. 

How  do  you  suppose  deserts  that  get  so  little  rain  themselves 
could  help  make  it  rain  in  other  places?  For  example,  the  desert  of 
Thibet  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  monsoon  rains  that  do  so  much  for 
India.  That  part  of  your  geography  that  explains  the  circulation 
of  the  air  will  help  you  figure  this  out;  particularly  with  a  map 
under  your  eye  that  shows  the  relative  location  of  the  desert  and 
the  Indian  Ocean,  over  which  the  monsoon  winds  blow. 


AN  EXAMPLE  OF  MAN'S  DEBT  TO  THE  EARTHWORM 

Much  of  the  earth's  Maytime  bloom  and  beauty  is  due  to  the  labor  of  our  humble  little 
brother  of  the  dust,  the  earthworm;  a  striking  fact  which  was  never  recognized  until  the 
great  Charles  Darwin  looked  into  the  matter  and  wrote  a  book  about  him.  This  picture  by 
Millet  is  called  "Springtime"  and  hangs  in  the  Louvre,  in  Paris. 


CHAPTER  V 

(MAY) 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  are  many  other  animals 
which  have  played  so  important  a  part  in  the  history  of  the 
world  as  these  lowly  organized  creatures. 

— Darwin :  "  The  Formation  of  Vegetable  Mould." 

WHAT  THE  EARTH  OWES  TO  THE  EARTHWORM 

Suppose  father  had  a  hired  hand  who  would  plough  his 
fields,  fertilize  them  at  his  own  expense,  build  his  own 
house,  board  himself,  and  for  all  this  ask  only  the  privilege 

75 


y6    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

of  living  on  the  place,  studying  Botany,  Geology,  and 
Geometry,  and  enjoying  the  scenery. 

"Where  can  I  get  a  man  like  that?"  I  imagine  father 
saying. 

"  You've  got  him  now,"  you  might  reply.  "He's  already 
working  for  you — thousands  of  him,  and  has  been  work- 
ing for  you — millions  of  him — for  thousands  and  millions 
of  years." 

We  have  all  known  him  well  from  boyhood  by  several 
names — angleworm,  fishworm,  earthworm.  He  also,  as 
you  will  find  in  the  dictionary,  has  a  nice  long  Latin  title. 
And  it  is  particularly  fitting  that  his  name  should  be  so 
associated  with  antiquity,  since  he  belongs  to  one  of  the 
oldest  families  in  the  world;  a  family  far  older  than  the 
Roman  Empire  itself,  which  his  people  long  ago  helped 
grind  back  into  the  dust  from  which  it  came. 

And,  speaking  of  Romans,  every  few  years  Mr.  Earth- 
worm does  what  Julius  Caesar  did,  captures  the  whole  of 
England — all  the  best  parts  of  it — and  then,  unlike  Caesar, 
gives  it  back  to  the  English,  made  over  again,  better  than 
it  was  before,  as  you  will  see. 

I.    THE  CITIES  OF  WORMS 

If  you  happen  to  be  a  high  school  boy  you,  of  course, 
know  about  a  certain  city  of  Worms  and  what  great  things 
took  place  there  once  upon  a  time,  but  there  are  many 
cities  of  worms  on  any  good  farm,  and  each  has  more  in- 
habitants than  the  famous  city  of  Worms  of  history — 
something  like  25,000  to  the  acre;  and,  in  garden  soil, 
50,000! 


THE  EARTHWORM 


77 


ANOTHER  "CATHEDRAL  OF  WORMS" 

In  the  story  of  the  Reformation  in  your  history  you  will  read  of  a  certain  Cathedral  of 
Worms  and  what  took  place  there  once  upon  a  time.  Here  is  a  ''cathedral  of  worms"  as 
interesting  to  the  student  of  nature  as  that  famous  edifice  is  to  the  historian  and  the  archi- 
tect. It  is  the  towerlike  casting  of  a  big  earthworm  and  was  found  in  the  Botanic  Garden 
at  Calcutta.  The  picture  is  "life-size." 


Did  you  ever  notice  how  big  boulders  in  a  field  are  fre- 
quently sunk  into  the  ground  as  if  dropped  from  a  great 
height?  It  is  the  earthworms  that  help  sink  them  in  the 
course  of  their  soil-making.  They  like  the  moist  shelter 


78    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST  . 

of  the  stones  and  burrow  under  them.  Finally  the  weight 
of  the  stones  crushes  the  burrows,  and  so  the  stones  sink 
down. 

PIONEER   LIFE   AMONG  THE   EARTHWORMS 

Poor  soil,  as  every  boy  knows,  is  a  poor  place  to  look 
for  fishworms.  But  you  have  noticed  that  the  mounds 
the  worm  throws  up  on  such  soil  are  larger  than  those  on 
rich  soil.  The  reason  is  that  the  soil,  being  less  nutritious, 
the  worm  must  eat  more  of  it  and,  in  so  doing,  pulverizes 
and  fertilizes  it.  But  a  menu  of  earth  alone  not  being  to 
the  earthworm's  liking,  undesirable  regions  have  fewer  of 
these  farmers  working  underground;  and  this,  for  the 
same  reason  that  these  regions  are  sparsely  settled  on  the 
surface — it  is  so  hard  to  make  a  living. 

So  the  earthworms  may  be  said  to  have  a  decided  taste 
in  landscape.  They  don't  care  for  desert  scenery  like 
Gerome's  picture  of  the  lion's  big  front  yard,1  but  they 
are  very  fond  of  orchards  where  the  soil  is  rich  and  leaves 
are  plenty.  The  pathways  artists  are  fond  of  putting  in 
landscapes  would  also  probably  attract  the  eyes  of  earth- 
worms— if  they  had  any,  for  the  worms  prefer  soil  a  little 
packed,  as  it  is  in  pathways,  because  it  makes  more  sub- 
stantial burrows.  And,  singularly  enough,  the  worms  also 
like  most  the  very  thing  that  the  artist  emphasizes  to  lead 
the  eye  into  his  picture — the  border  lines  that  define  the 
path.  It  is  along  the  edges  of  a  pathway  that  you  find 
most  worms. 

1"The  Two  Majesties."  This  painting,  by  a  great  French  realist, 
shows  a  lion  getting  home  rather  late,  after  his  night  out,  stopping  for 
a  look  at  the  rising  sun;  a  thing  with  which,  owing  to  his  habits,  he  is 
not  very  familiar. 


THE  EARTHWORM 


79 


Painted  by  F.  0.  Sylvester.  Painted  by  Westman. 

THE  EARTHWORM'S  TASTE  IN  SCENERY 

Two  features  common  to  both  these  pictures — the  trees  and  the  pathways — appeal  to 
earthworms  as  well  as  artists,  for  reasons  you  have  learned  in  this  chapter. 


The  earthworm,  in  addition  to  working  over  and  fertiliz- 
ing the  soil  already  made,  actually  helps  make  soil  out  of 
rock.  He  does  this  in  two  ways:  (i)  With  acids — for,  like 
the  Little  Old  Man  of  the  Rock,  he  is  a  chemist;  (2)  by 
grinding  up  rock  in  a  little  mill  he  always  carries  with 
him. 

HOW   THE   EARTHWORM   COOKS  HIS   MEALS 

The  earthworm's  favorite  diet  is  leaves  and  he  has  a 
way  of  cooking  them.  It  is  not  quite  like  our  way  of  cook- 
ing beet  or  dandelion  leaves,  but  it  answers  the  same  pur- 


8o    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

pose — it  partially  digests  them.  In  glands,  in  his  "mouth," 
he  secretes  a  fluid  which,  like  our  saliva,  contains  an  alkali. 
But  the  earthworm's  alkaline  solution  is  much  stronger, 
and  when  he  covers  a  fresh  green  leaf  with  it — as  he  is 
usually  obliged  to  do  in  Summer  when  there  are  so  few 
stale  vegetables,  the  kind  he  prefers,  in  his  market — the 
leaf  quickly  turns  brown  and  becomes  as  soft  as  a  boiled 
cabbage. 

Of  course,  there  are  always  dead  leaves  in  the  woods, 
and  these,  which  even  the  cow  with  her  fine  digestive  out- 
fit cannot  handle,  are  a  delight  to  the  earthworm;  for  he 
also  has  a  much  larger  supply  of  pancreatic  juice  than  the 
higher  animals,  and  this  takes  care  of  the  leaves  after  he 
has  swallowed  them.  He  swallows  bit  by  bit;  just  like  a 
nice  little  boy  who  has  been  taught  not  to  bolt  his  food. 

The  acids  in  the  earthworm's  "stomach,"  acting  on  the 
leaves,  help  make  other  acids  which  remain  in  the  soil  after 
it  has  passed  through  the  earthworm's  body  and  help  dis- 
solve those  fine  grains  of  sand  which  make  your  bare  feet 
so  gritty  when  mud  dries  on  them.  And,  not  only  that, 
but  this  coating  of  soil  lying  upon  the  bed  rock  hastens 
its  decay;  for  the  earthworm's  burrow  runs  down  four  to 
six  feet,  sometimes  farther. 

Besides  the  soil  he  thus  grinds  up  and  fertilizes  so  well 
with  leaf-mould — what  your  text-book  on  agriculture  calls 
"humus" — the  earthworm  does  a  lot  of  useful  grinding 
in  connection  with  the  building  of  his  house.  He  begins, 
as  we  do,  by  digging  the  cellar;  but  there  he  stops,  for  his 
house  is  all  cellar!  He  makes  it  in  two  ways:  (i)  By 
pushing  aside  the  earth  as  he  advances;  (2)  by  swallowing 
earth  and  passing  it  through  his  body,  thus  making  the 
little  mounds  you  see  on  the  surface. 


THE   EARTHWORM  81 


THE   EARTHWORM    SYSTEM   AT   PANAMA 

A  principle  similar  to  his  swallowing  operations  is  fre- 
quently employed  in  engineering;  as  in  making  the  Panama 
Canal,  where  dredging  machinery  dug  out  swamps  and 
pumped  the  mud  through  a  tube  into  other  swamps  to 
fill  them  up  and  help  get  rid  of  the  mosquitoes. 

In  pushing  the  earth  away  the  worm  uses  the  principle 
of  the  wedge,  stretching  out  his  "nose" — as  you  have  often 
seen  him  do  when  crawling — and  poking  it  into  the  crevices 
in  the  ground;  much  as  the  wheat  roots  poke  their  little 
noses  through  the  fertile  soil  the  earthworm  makes. 

And,  as  in  human  engineering  and  the  work  of  the  ant, 
the  earthworm  doesn't  throw  the  dirt  around  carelessly. 
He  casts  it  out,  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other; 
using  his  tail  to  spread  it  about  neatly. 

THE    TILING   IN   THE   EARTHWORM'S   HOUSE 

The  walls  of  the  earthworm's  house  are  plastered,  too. 
At  first  they  are  made  a  little  larger  than  his  body.  Then 
he  coats  them  with  earth,  ground  very  fine,  like  the  clay 
for  making  our  cups  and  saucers,  and  for  making  the  beau- 
tiful white  tiling  on  the  walls  at  the  stations  of  a  city  sub- 
way. When  this  earthworm  "porcelain"  dries  it  forms  a 
lining,  hard  and  smooth,  which  keeps  the  earthworm's 
tender  body  from  being  scratched  as  he  moves  up  and 
down  his  long  hallway.  It  also  enables  him  to  travel 
faster  because  it  is  smooth,  and  it  strengthens  the  walls. 

The  burrows  which  run  far  down  into  the  ground,  as 
all  finally  do  toward  Autumn,  end  in  a  little  chamber.  Into 
this  tiny  bedroom  the  worm  retires  during  the  hot,  dry 
days  of  August  and  there  he  spends  the  Winter — usually 


82     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

with  several  companions,  all  sound  asleep,  packed  together 
for  warmth. 

AND   RUGS   ON   THE   FLOORS  ! 

Sometimes  the  Summer  and  Winter  residences  are  quite 
ambitious,  several  burrows  opening  into  one  large  cham- 
ber and  each  tunnel  having  two,  sometimes  three,  cham- 
bers of  its.  own — like  a  fashionable  apartment  with  its  main 
reception-room,  and  still  more  like  the  central  sitting-rooms 
in  Greek  and  Roman  palaces.  And  the  earthworm  seems 
even  to  have  some  idea  of  mosaics,  for  it  is  the  general  prac- 
tice to  pave  these  chambers  with  little  pebbles  about  the 
size  of  a  mustard-seed.  This  is  to  help  keep  the  worm's 
body  from  the  cold  ground.  In  addition  to  the  mosaic 
floors  the  earthworms  have  rugs  with  lovely  leaf  patterns 
like  the  Oriental  rugs  that  are  so  highly  prized;  and,  as  in 
the  case  of  genuine  Oriental  rugs,  no  two  patterns  are  alike. 
These  rugs  are  leaves  which  the  earthworm  drags  into  his 
burrow,  not  for  food  but  for  house  furnishing.  When  used 
for  house  furnishing  they  are  placed  in  the  entrance-hall; 
that  is  to  say,  they  are  used  to  coat  the  mouth  of  the  bur- 
row to  prevent  the  worm's  body  from  coming  in  contact 
with  the  ground.  The  mouth  of  the  burrow,  of  course,  is 
just  where  it  is  coldest  at  night  in  the  Summer,  the  time 
of  year  when  the  earthworm  spends  a  great  deal  of  his 
tune  in  the  front  of  his  house.  The  surface  of  the  earth, 
you  know,  cools  very  rapidly  after  sunset  and  the  dew  on 
the  grass  in  the  morning  is  so  cold  it  makes  your  bare  feet 
ache.  The  worm  requires  damp  earth  around  him  because 
he  breathes  through  his  skin  and  must  keep  it  moist,  but 
at  the  same  tune  he  is  sensitive  to  cold. 

And  to  drafts.     Ugh  ! 


THE  EARTHWORM  83 

PEBBLE-FORT  DEFENSES  AGAINST  THE  FOE 

So  he  is  very  careful  to  keep  the  front  door  closed.  This 
he  does  by  stopping  it  up  with  leaves,  leaf  stems,  and  sticks. 
He  also  protects  the  door  with  little  heaps  of  smooth  round 
pebbles;  but  these  pebbles  are  of  a  larger  size  than  those 
he  uses  for  paving  the  floor  of  his  chamber.  Besides  help- 
ing to  keep  out  drafts  these  pebbles  serve  another  purpose. 
As  our  ancestors,  the  cave-builders,  barred  the  door  with 
boulders  to  keep  out  bears  and  other  unwelcome  callers, 
so  the  earthworms  are  protected  by  the  pebbles,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  from  one  of  their  enemies — the  thousand- 
legged  worm.  Because  of  these  little  forts,  the  earthworms 
can  remain  with  more  safety  near  the  doorway  and  enjoy 
the  warmth  of  the  morning  sun.  (So  we  might  have  re- 
produced Corot's  "Morning"  as  a  kind  of  landscape  the 
earthworm  enjoys !) 

II.    THE  MIND  OF  THE  EARTHWORM 

From  all  of  which  you  can  see  the  earthworm,  for  what 
small  schooling  he  gets,  is  a  very  bright  boy !  If  we  were 
as  bright,  according  to  our  opportunities,  we  would  prob- 
ably have  answered  long  ago  such  puzzles  as  the  question 
whether  there  is  really  anybody  at  home  in  Mars,  how  to 
keep  stored  eggs  from  tasting  of  the  shell,  and  other  great 
scientific  problems  of  our  day. 

WHERE   MR.    EARTHWORM   KEEPS   HIS   BRAIN 

Just  as  we  have  little  brains  in  the  tips  of  our  fingers, 
the  earthworms  have  brains  in  the  ends  of  their  "noses." 
They  have  neither  eyes  nor  ears,  but,  like  that  wonderful 


84    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

girl,  Helen  Keller,  they  make  up  for  the  lack  of  these  senses, 
to  a  remarkable  degree,  by  the  development  of  the  sense 
of  touch.  They  acquire  quite  a  little  knowledge  of  Botany, 
for  example.  They  not  only  know  that  leaves  are  good  to 
eat,  but  they  know  which  is  the  "petiole"  and  which  is  the 
"base."  They  always  drag  leaves  into  their  burrows  by 
the  smallest  ends,  because  this  makes  it  easier  to  get  them 
through  the  door.  And  it  is  not  by  mere  instinct  that  they 
do  this.  Supply  worms  with  leaves  of  different  form  from 
those  which  grow  in  the  region  where  they  live,  and  they 
will  experiment  with  them  until  they  find  just  the  best 
way  in  which  to  pull  them  into  the  burrows.  After  that 
they  will  always  take  hold  of  them  so,  without  further 
experiment.  That  is  the  majority  of  them  will  do  this;  for 
earthworms  are  like  other  little  people — all  of  them  are  not 
equally  ambitious  or  studious. 

And  the  earthworm  also  knows  something  about  Geome- 
try. Cut  paper  into  little  triangles  of  various  shapes  and 
pretend  to  the  worms  that  they  are  leaves  by  scattering 
them  near  the  mouths  of  the  burrows.  Then  remove  the 
leaves  with  which  the  burrows  are  stopped.  The  worms 
will  pull  in  the  slips  to  close  the  door  and  they  will — most 
of  them — take  hold  by  the  apex  of  the  triangle  because 
that  is  the  narrowest  point. 

THE  EARTHWORM'S  TASTE  IN  MUSIC 

c 

So  you  see  the  earthworm  is  a  very  cultivated  country 
gentleman  with  his  knowledge  of  Botany  and  Geometry, 
and  his  taste  for  landscape.  But  this  is  not  all.  He  also 
has  opinions  about  music.  There  are  certain  notes  that 
apparently  get  on  his  nerves.  Put  worms  in  good  soil  in 


THE  EARTHWORM 


THREE  EARLY  BIRDS.    FIND  THE  THIRD 

Don't  they  look  happy — these  two  tow-heads?  They  are  evidently  going  fishing  in  the 
early  morning.  Another  early  bird — several  of  him — that  we  are  saying  a  good  deal  about 
in  these  pages  is  to  be  found  in  the  can.  Still  another,  the  one  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  is 
taking  advantage  of  the  earthworm's  family  habit  of  wanning  his  "nose"  in  the  early  sun 
rays. 


a  flower-pot,  and  some  evening  when  they  are  lying  out- 
side their  burrows  set  the  pot  on  the.  piano  and  strike  the 
note  C  in  the  bass  clef.  Instantly  they  will  pull  themselves 
into  their  burrows.  They  will  do  the  same  thing  at  the 
sound  of  G  above  the  line  in  the  treble  clef.  Although  they 
cannot  hear,  they  are  sensitive  to  vibrations,  and  these 
are  carried  from  the  sounding-board  of  the  piano  into  the 
pot.  They  are  less  sensitive  when  the  pot  itself  is  tapped. 
The  music  seems  to  go  right  through  them. 


86    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


WHY   THE   EARLY   BIRD    GETS   THE   WORM 

Except  in  rainy  weather  worms  ordinarily  come  out  of 
their  burrows  only  at  night.  By  early  morning  they  have 
withdrawn  into  their  holes  and  lie  with  their  noses  close 
to  the  surface  to  get  the  warmth  of  the  morning  sun.  Then 
the  early  bird  gets  them!  The  reason  a  robin  cocks  his 
head  in  such  a  funny  way — like  a  lord  with  a  monocle — 
just  before  he  captures  a  worm,  is  not  because  he  is  listen- 
ing, as  many  people  think;  for  the  worm  isn't  saying  a 
word  and  he  isn't  moving,  and  wouldn't  make  a  bit  of  noise 
if  he  did  move.  The  robin's  eyes  are  on  each  side  of  his 
head  and  not  in  the  middle  of  his  face  like  ours,  so  he  must 
turn  his  head  in  order  to  bring  his  eye  in  line  with  the  hole 
where  he  sees  the  tip  of  Mr.  Earthworm's  nose. 

And  many  people  also  believe  that  earthworms  come 
down  with  the  rain.  Even  park  policemen  believe  it.  At 
least,  one  said  to  me,  in  Central  Park: 

"In  dhry  spells  ye  won't  see  wan.  But  let  there  come  a 
little  shower  an'  th'  walks  and  the  dhrives  will  be  covered 
wid  them;  like  the  fairy  stones  that  fall  wid  the  rain  in 
the  ould  counthry." 

DO   EARTHWORMS   COME  DOWN  WITH   THE   RAIN? 

The  reason  you  see  so  many  worms  after  a  rain  is  that 
earthworms  like  moisture,  and  the  rain  seems  to  make  them 
feel  particularly  good  and  breed  a  spirit  of  adventure.  So 
out  of  their  holes  and  away  they  go  !  A  rain  is  their  shower- 
bath;  and  you  know  how  a  shower-bath  makes  you  feel. 


THE   EARTHWORM  87 

The  mornings  when  the  earthworms  are  apt  to  be  thickest 
are  those  following  a  comparatively  light,  rain  in  early 
Spring  when  the  worms  have  recently  awakened  from  their 
long  Winter  nap.  With  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season 
in  the  Fall,  the  worms  also  do  a  good  deal  of  travelling 
into  foreign  lands,  but  in  both  Spring  and  Fall  you  will 
usually  find  more  worms  after  a  light  shower  than  after 
a  long,  heavy  downpour.  If  the  worms  were  drowned  out 
it  would  be  the  other  way  around,  don't  you  see? 

To  be  sure,  you  will  often  find  dead  worms  in  shallow 
pools  by  the  roadside;  particularly  after  Autumn  rains. 
These  are  sick  worms  and  the  chill  was  too  much  for  them. 
But  it's  remarkable  how  low  a  temperature  a  good  husky 
angleworm  can  stand.  A  professor  in  the  University  of 
Chicago,  near  which  I  live,  tells  me  he  has  often  found  the 
ground  in  the  neighboring  park  covered  with  worms  after 
November  rains  when  his  hands,  and  those  of  the  students 
who  were  helping  him  gather  them  for  study,  were  numb 
with  the  cold. 

And  how  much  work  do  you  suppose  these  farmers  do 
in  grinding  up  and  fertilizing  the  soil?  In  many  parts  of 
England  the  whole  of  the  best  land — the  vegetable  mould 
—passes  through  their  bodies  every  few  years,  and  they 
are  doing  similar  work  all  over  the  world. 

They  not  only  fertilize  the  earth  by  mixing  it  with  the 
leaves  they  eat  and  those  that  decay  in  their  burrows, 
but  their  castings  help  to  bury  fallen  leaves  and  twigs  and 
dead  insects,  and  they  also  bring  up  lower  soil  to  the  sur- 
face, thus  increasing  its  fertility.  And  by  loosening  the 
soil  they  let  in  more  air.  Remember  that  roots,  like  people, 
must  have  air. 


88    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

III.    THE  MILL  OF  THE  EARTHWORM 

For  the  grinding  up  of  the  earth  and  the  leaves,  the 
earthworm  has,  as  I  have  already  said,  a  little  mill  that 
he  always  carries  with  him.  Do  you  know  what  a  gold 
mill  is  ?  Well,  a  gold  mill  is  a  mill  that  grinds  up  rock  and 
so  grinds  out  the  gold.  The  earthworm's  mill,  in  a  manner 
of  speaking,  also  grinds  out  gold,  for  it  grinds  the  little 
particles  of  stone  in  the  soil,  and  this  soil  grows  fields  of 
golden  grain. 

The  earthworm's  mill  is  his  gizzard.  This  gizzard  is 
made  and  works  very  much  like  the  gizzard  of  the  chicken. 
And  like  the  chicken  the  earthworm  swallows  little  stones 
to  help  his  digestion.  So  these  stones,  too,  are  ground  into 
soil. 

Like  the  chicken's  gizzard  the  gizzard  of  the  earthworm 
is  lined  with  a  thick,  tough  membrane,  and  it  has  muscles 
— such  muscles !  There  are  two  sets  of  these  muscles  and 
they  cross  each  other  somewhat  like  the  warp  and  woof  of 
the  cloth  in  your  clothes.  The  muscles  that  run  length- 
wise are  not  so  very  strong,  for  all  they  have  to  do  is  to 
help  the  earthworm  swallow,  but  the  muscles  that  run 
around  the  gizzard  are  wonderfully  strong.  They  are  about 
ten  times  as  thick  as  the  other  muscles.  One  of  Mr.  Earth- 
worm's French  biographers1  calls  these  muscles  "veritable 
armatures";  that  is,  freely  translated,  "veritable  hoops  of 
steel." 

I  said,  in  the  second  paragraph  above  this,  that  worms 

1  When  you  study  French,  if  you  want  to  read  this  book — like  most 
French  works  on  science  it  is  very  interesting — ask  for  Perrier's  "Or- 
ganization des  Lumbricus  Terrestris." 


THE  EARTHWORM  89 

swallow  grains  of  sand  and  stones  to  help  their  digestions, 
as  chickens  do.  But  the  earthworm  saves  time,  for  he 
takes  the  stones  with  his  meals;  just  as  some  Englishmen, 
fat  old  squires,  when  they  get  along  in  years,  or  for  any 
other  reason  are  a  little  weak  in  their  digestive  regions — • 
keep  pepsin  on  the  table  with  the  pepper  and  salt. 

And — believe  it  or  not — the  earthworm  actually  makes 
his  own  millstones  sometimes !  The  chalk  in  the  chalky 
fluid  of  the  glands  that  help  him  digest  his  meals  frequently 
hardens  into  little  grains  in  grinding  the  food.  It's  almost 
as  if  the  saliva  in  our  mouths,  in  addition  to  acting  directly 
on  the  food,  also  made  a  new  set  of  teeth  for  us ! 

Suppose  we  had  a  stomach  like  the  earthworm,  wouldn't 
it  be  fun  ?  We  could  digest  the  biggest  dinners  at  Thanks- 
giving and  Christmas  and  picnics  and  birthdays.  We 
could  even  eat  apples  without  waiting  for  them  to  get  quite 
ripe.  Haven't  you  done  it  to  your  sorrow?  And  no 
stomachache  and  no  mince-pie  nightmares ! 

WHY   THE   EARTHWORM  NEVER  HAS   NIGHTMARES 

By  the  way,  the  earthworm,  although  he  has  his  troubles 
like  the  rest  of  us,  never  has  nightmares.  For  one  thing 
he  has  that  stomach1  and — a  still  better  reason,  perhaps — 
he  never  sleeps  at  night.  Like  the  moths  and  the  bats  and 
the  burglars  and  members  of  Parliament,  he  makes  night 
his  busy  day. 

And,  in  other  ways,  while  he  is  so  much  like  the  rest  of 
us  worms  of  the  dust,  his  life  differs  from  that  of  most 

1  Just  listen  to  this:  "Worms,"  says  Mr.  Darwin,  in  that  remarkable 
book  of  his,  "are  indifferent  to  very  sharp  objects,  even  rose  thorns 
and  small  splinters  of  glass." 


90    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

people.  For  instance,  he  not  only  works  by  night  while 
we  work  by  day,  and  works  underground  while  we  work 
on  top,  but  he  takes  his  vacation  in  the  Winter  while  we 
take  ours  in  Summer.  In  that  respect  Mr.  Earthworm  is 
like  the  millionaires  at  Palm  Beach;  for  in  Winter  he,  too, 
goes  in  the  direction  we  call  south  on  the  map — that  is 
to  say  down. 

But,  as  you  say,  it  takes  all  kinds  of  people  to  make  a 
world;  including  earthworms  and  millionaires! 

HIDE   AND    SEEK  IN  THE   LIBRARY 

Who  was  that  in  Mother  Goose  that  went  a-fishing  "for  to  catch 
a  whale"?  Anyhow,  there  are  fish  worms  so  big  that  one  might 
suppose  they  were  made  for  catching  whales.  How  long  do  you 
suppose  they  are,  these  big  fish  worms?  A  foot? 

Pshaw !  We  have  fishworms  of  our  own  a  foot  long.  Two  feet  ? 
More.  Three  feet?  More.  You  look  it  up  in  the  article  on  the 
earthworm  in  the  "Britannica." 

And  how  many  kinds  of  earthworms  do  you  suppose  there  are? 
You  will  be  surprised  to  learn. 

Also,  you  will  find  that  the  earthworms  have  relatives  who  live 
in  the  water  all  the  time. 

The  article  in  the  "International"  tells  why  these  modest  neigh- 
bors of  ours  don't  come  to  the  surface  in  the  daytime.  That  will 
be  an  interesting  thing  to  know.  Don't  you  think  so? 

And  did  you  ever  count  an  earthworm's  rings?  Other  scien- 
tists have.  (All  live  boys  and  girls  are  scientists;  they  want  to 
know.)  Try  counting  the  rings  of  an  earthworm  and  then  compare 
your  figures  with  those  given  in  the  article  in  the  "International." 

How  many  hearts  do  you  suppose  an  earthworm  has  ?  You  will 
find  in  the  "International's"  article  they  have  a  good  many  of 
what  are  sometimes  called  "hearts,"  and  how  different  the  earth- 
worm's circulation  system  is  from  ours. 

Does  our  saliva  do  for  us  anything  like  what  it  does  for  the  earth- 
worm; and  our  pancreatic  juice? 

Compare  the  earthworm's  method  of  digging  his  subway  with 


THE  EARTHWORM  91 

that  of  the  armadillo.  How  do  they  differ  in  the  way  of  using  their 
noses? 

Do  you  know  how  men  dig  subways;  like  those  under  New  York 
City  and  Boston,  for  instance?  Books  that  tell  about  this  phase 
of  human  engineering  and  tell  it  in  a  very  interesting  way  are  "On 
the  Battle-front  of  Engineering"  ("New  York's  Culebra  Cut") 
and  "Romance  of  Modern  Engineering"  ("City  Railways"), 
"Travelers  and  Traveling"  ("How  Elevated  Roads  and  Subways 
Are  Built"). 

Speaking  of  the  earthworm's  wedge  and  how  he  uses  it,  do  you 
know  that  all  of  man's  complicated  machinery  is  the  result  of  only 
a  few  simple  mechanical  principles  combined;  and  that  the  wedge 
is  one  of  the  most  important?  Look  up  "wedge,"  "machine," 
"simple  machine.''  etc.,  in  the  dictionary  or  encyclopaedia. 

How  does  the  earthworm's  method  of  pushing  his  way  in  the 
world  with  the  end  of  his  nose  compare  with  the  way  a  root  works 
along  in  the  ground  ?  (See  Chapter  X.) 

The  earthworm's  neat  way  of  disposing  of  the  dirt  he  casts  out  re- 
minds me  of  how  the  beaver  handles  dirt  when  he  builds  a  canal, 
and  the  way  of  the  ants  in  digging  their  underground  homes. 
(Chapters  VI  and  VIII.) 

We  have  little  brains  in  our  finger-tips  just  as  the  earthworm 
has  on  the  end  of  his  nose.  How  much  do  you  know  about  the 
little  brains  scattered  through  our  bodies  (Ganglia)  ? 

You  see  the  simple  earthworm  is  the  A,  B,  C  of  a  lot  of  things; 
and  even  Mr.  Darwin's  famous  book  doesn't  contain  all  there  is  to 
be  learned  about  him  in  books  and  in  personal  interviews  with  Mr. 
Earthworm  himself.  A  farm  boy  to  whom  the  writer  read  the 
story  of  the  earthworm,  when  asked  how  he  thought  the  worm 
could  turn  in  his  burrow  when  it  fits  him  so  closely,  said,  "Why, 
he  turns  around  in  that  little  room  at  the  end  of  the  hall,"  thereby 
solving,  as  I  think,  a  problem  that  puzzled  Mr.  Darwin,  and  which 
he  left  unsolved. 


SINFUL  TACTICS  OF  A  SACRED   BEETLE 

The  beetle  pushing  backward  is  the  owner  of  the  ball  and  is  on  his  way — as  he  thinks— to 
his  burrow.  The  other  is  altering  the  direction  toward  his  own  burrow.  Fabre's  book  on 
the  Sacred  Beetle — the  tumblebug  of  our  fields  and  roadways — tells  how  the  thing  came  out. 


CHAPTER  VI 

(JUNE) 

Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard; 
Consider  her  ways,  and  be  wise. 

— Proverbs  6:6. 

THE  LITTLE   FARMERS   WITH   SIX  FEET 

I  don't  believe  I've  ever  heard  anybody  say  anything 
against  an  angleworm;  although  not  many  people,  even  to 
this  day,  I'll  be  bound,  realize  what  a  useful  citizen  the 
angleworm  is. 

92 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS   WITH  SIX  FEET      93 

But  now  we  come  to  a  class  of  farmers  that,  as  a  class, 
are  positively  disliked;  farmers  that  nobody  has  a  good 
word  for,  that  nobody  wants  for  neighbors.  The  charge 
against  them  is  that,  like  the  man  in  the  Bible,  they  are 
always  reaping  where  they  have  not  sown;  always  helping 
themselves  to  other  people's  crops — bushels  of  wheat, 
bushels  of  rye,  tons  of  cotton,  loads  of  hay  and  apples  and 
peaches  and  plums;  and  nice  garden  vegetables;  and  even 
the  trees  in  the  wood  lot.  It  is  estimated,  for  instance, 
that  the  chinch-bug  helps  himself  every  year  to  $30,000,000 
worth  of  Uncle  Sam's  grain;  while  other  insects  make  away 
with  10  per  cent  of  his  hay  crop,  20  per  cent  of  mother's 
garden  vegetables,  $10,000,000  worth  of  father's  tobacco; 
and  the  Hessian  fly  sees  to  it  that  between  10  and  25  per 
cent  of  the  farmer's  wheat  never  gets  to  mill. 

"Yes,  and  sometimes  it's  50-50  between  the  farmer  and 
the  fly,"  said  the  high  school  boy,  who  often  spends  his 
vacation  with  a  country  cousin. 

Then  there  are  insects  that  injure  and  destroy  forest 
trees  because  they  like  to  eat  the  leaves  or  the  wood  itself; 
and  some  300  kinds  of  insects  that  make  themselves  free 
with  other  people's  orchards. 

I.    CONSIDERING  THE  ANT 

But,  as  I  said  a  few  moments  ago,  it  takes  all  sorts  of 
people  to  make  a  world;  and  as  there  are  good  and  bad 
citizens  among  men,  so  there  are  good  and  bad  among 
insects.  Indeed  there  are  so  many  useful  insects  that  help 
make  or  fertilize  the  soil  by  grinding  up  earth  and  burying 
things  in  it,  that  even  this  chapter,  which  is  rather  long,  as 


94    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

you  see,  can't  begin  to  tell  about  all  of  them.  So  suppose 
we  give  our  space  to  a  few  by  way  of  example,  and  then 
look  up  others  in  other  books  in  the  library. 

AMOUNT  OF  WORK  DONE  BY  ANTS 

First  of  all  let  us  consider  the  ways  of  the  ant  (as  the 
Bible  tells  us  to).    The  ant's  work  may  be  said  to  take  up 


1 


A  HEAP  OF  GRIST  FROM  AN  ANT  SOIL  MILL 

Something  of  an  ant-hill,  isn't  it?  It  is  a  foot  high  and  measures  nearly  three  feet  across. 
You  will  find  such  ant  hills  in  the  Arkansas  Valley  rn  Colorado,  where  the  photograph  of 
this  one  was  taken. 


where  the  earthworm  leaves  off.  Mr.  Earthworm,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  a  little  fastidious  about  the  kind  of  land  he 
tills.  Among  other  things,  he  is  inclined  to  avoid  sandy 
soil,  while  the  ants  will  be  found  piling  up  their  pretty 
cones  of  sand  or  clay  as  well  as  of  black  earth.  And  in 
some  soils  the  ants  do  more  important  work  than  the  worm 
that  helped  make  Mr.  Darwin  famous.  In  the  course  of  a 
single  year  they  may  bring  fresh  soil  to  the  surface  to  the 
average  depth  of  a  quarter  of  an  inch  over  many  square 
miles.  This  not  only  helps  to  keep  the  farmer's  fields  fer- 
tile by  adding  fresh,  unused  earth,  but  enriches  them  by 


THE  LITTLE   FARMERS   WITH  SIX  FEET      95 


THE  DESERTED  VILLAGE  UNDER  THE  STONE 

If  Oliver  Goldsmith  had  been  as  much  interested  in  ants  as  was  the  French  "Homer  of 
the  insect,"  Henri  Fabre,  he  might  have  written  of  another  kind  of  "Deserted  Village,"  its 
"desert  walks"  and  its  "mouldering  walls."  This  is  a  deserted  village  of  ants.  The  little 
citizens  that  built  it  lived  under  a  stone.  When  the  stone  was  lifted  it  took  the  entire  roof 
off  the  place. 


burying  the  vegetation — such  as  leaves  and  twigs  and 
branches  broken  from  dead  trees  by  storms — so  that  it  de- 
cays. This  burying  of  vegetation  is  the  very  thing  the 
good  farmer  does  when  he  spreads  his  fields  with  manure 
from  the  barnyard,  or  when  he  ploughs  under  the  stubble. 
Ants  are  very  glad  to  do  this  for  the  farmer  because  it 
isn't  any  extra  trouble  for  them.  Their  little  heaps  of 
fresh  earth  are  thrown  out  in  connection  with  the  building 
of  their  homes.  The  mining  ants  dig  galleries  in  clay,  build- 
ing pillars  to  support  the  work  and  covering  them  with 
thatches  of  grass.  The  red  and  yellow  field  ants  are  the 
masons.  They  first  raise  pillars  and  then  construct  arches 


96    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

between  them,  covering  these  arches  with  the  loose  piles 
of  soil  which  we  know  as  ant-hills.  The  carpenter-ants 
bore  their  cells  in  the  dead  limbs  of  trees,  and  the  wood 
dust  they  make  from  them  hurries  on  the  process  of  re- 
turning these  dead  limbs  to  the  soil.  One  kind  of  carpenter- 
ant  covers  its  walls  with  a  mixture  of  sawdust,  earth,  and 
spiders'  webs.  An  ant  in  Australia  builds  its  home  of  leaves 
fastened  together  with  a  kind  of  saliva.  One  kind  of  ant, 
whose  calling  card  among  scientific  people  is  Formica 
fusca,1  adds  new  stories  to  old  houses  as  the  colony  grows; 
much  as  in  the  growth  of  cities  and  hamlets  the  buildings 
grow  taller  with  the  growth  of  the  town.  Just  as  men  do, 
such  ants  first  build  the  side  walls  and  then  the  ceilings. 
As  if  these  ants  are  working  under  contract  and  must  get 
their  job  done  by  a  certain  time,  two  groups  are  employed 
on  the  ceiling  at  the  same  tune,  each  group  working  toward 
the  other  from  the  opposite  wall  and  meeting  in  the  middle. 

THE   ANT  WHO   DIDN'T   KNOW  HIS   TRADE 

As  you  may  suppose,  this  is  real  architectural  engineer- 
ing and  no  place  for  amateurs.  I  once  saw  a  foolish  worker 
starting  a  roof  from  the  top  of  one  of  the  side  walls  without 
paying  any  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  other  wall  was 
much  higher.  The  result  was  he  struck  the  middle  of  it, 
instead  of  joining  it  at  the  top.  Another  ant  passing,  pos- 
sibly the  supervising  architect,  saw  what  was  going  to 

1  In  the  world  of  science,  the  ant  goes  by  her  Latin  name,  Formica, 
and  the  whole  family  is  known  as  the  Formicida.  To  a  Roman  boy 
Formica  simply  meant  "ant."  Fusca  is  also  Latin,  and  means  "dark"; 
so  you  can  see  this  part  of  the  story  is  about  a  species  of  dark  ant.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  he  is  dark  brown. 


THE  LITTLE   FARMERS   WITH   SIX  FEET      97 

happen.  So  what  does  he  do  but  stop  and  tear  down  the 
other's  work  and  build  the  ceiling  over  again ! 

"There !  That's  the  way  to  put  in  a  ceiling,"  he  seemed 
to  say.  "For  goodness  sake,  where  did  you  learn  your 
trade?" 

Huber,  the  famous  student  of  ants,  saw  two  of  these 
wonderful  insects  do  the  very  same  thing. 

Sometimes  the  situation  is  such  that  it  is  necessary  to 
build  a  very  wide  ceiling,  so  wide  that  it  would  fall  of  its 
own  weight  unless  supported  in  some  way.  Then  what 
would  you  do;  that  is,  if  you  were  an  ant? 

"Why,  I'd  put  up  pillars  to  hold  it." 

That's  exactly  what  the  ants  do;  they  put  up  pillars; 
but  instead  of  using  steel  beams,  as  men  do  in  this  day  of 
steel,  the  ant  architects  make  pillars  of  clay — build  them 
up  with  pellets,  little  clay  bricks  which  they  shape  with 
their  mandibles — their  jaws. 

But  the  ants  seem  to  have  some  of  the  methods  of  steel 
construction,  too;  the  use  of  girders  and  things.  Ebrard, 
a  French  student  of  ants,  tells  how,  when  a  certain  roof 
threatened  to  fall,  some  Sir  Christopher  Wren  of  the  ant 
world  used  a  blade  of  grass  as  a  girder,  just  as  Sir  Christo- 
pher in  his  day  put  in  girders  to  support  the  roof  of  Saint 
Paul's  Cathedral,  and  as  men  use  steel  girders  to-day.  The 
ant  fastened  a  little  mass  of  earth  on  the  end  of  a  grass 
stalk  growing  near  to  bend  it  over;  then  gnawed  it  a  little 
at  the  bottom  to  make  it  bend  still  more,  and  finally  fixed 
it  with  mud  pellets  into  the  roof. 

But  here's  something  that  will  make  you  smile !  You 
have  heard  about  the  lazy  man  down  in  Arkansas  with 
the  hole  in  his  roof?  You  remember  he  never  mended  it 


98    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

in  dry  weather  because  it  didn't  need  it,  and  when  it  rained 
he  couldn't  mend  it  on  account  of  the  rain ! 


RAINY-DAY   WORK  IN   THE   ANT   WORLD 

Well,   these  Formica  fusca  folks  are  as  different  from 
that  Arkansas  man  as  anything  you  could  imagine.    First 


AN  ANT  CARRYING  ONE  OF  HER  COWS 


of  all,  being  ants,  they  are  anything  but  lazy;  secondly, 
they  never  put  off  needed  work  on  their  roofs  on  account 
of  rain.  In  fact,  they  choose  the  first  wet  day  to  do  it.  As 
soon  as  the  rain  begins  they  build  up  a  thick  terrace  on 
the  roof  of  the  old  dwelling,  carrying  in  their  jaws  little 
piles  of  finely  ground  earth  which  they  spread  out  with 
their  hind  legs.  Then,  by  hollowing  out  this  roof,  they  turn 
it  into  a  new  story.  Last  of  all  they  put  on  the  ceiling. 
You  see  the  rain  helps  them  in  mixing  their  clay. 

There  are  ants  that  build  up  vaulted  viaducts  or  covered 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS  WITH  SIX   FEET      99 

ways,  and  they  use  clay  for  that.1  They  make  the  clay  by 
mixing  earth  with  saliva.  Some  of  these  viaducts  reach  out 
from  the  house — the  ants'  house — to  their  "cow"  pasture. 

You  know  about  how  ants  keep  cows,  little  bugs  called 
aphids  ?  The  aphids  feed  on  plants,  and  the  clay  viaducts 
protect  the  ants  from  their  enemies  and  from  the  sun  in 
going  to  and  from  the  pasture;  for  this  particular  family 
of  ants  doesn't  like  the  sun.  They  make  clay  sheds  for  their 
cattle,  too.  Here  and  there  along  the  clay  viaduct  are  large 
roomy  spaces,  cow-sheds,  so  to  speak — where  the  little 
honey  cows  gather  when  they  aren't  feeding.  Another 
kind  of  ant  builds  earth  huts  around  its  cow  pastures.  The 
large  red  ants  (F.  rufa),  some  tunes  called  "horse  ants," 
build  hills  as  large  as  small  haycocks. 

II.    THE  TERMITES  AND  THEIR  TOWERS  OF  BABEL 

But  speaking  of  big  buildings,  did  you  ever  hear  of  a 
skyscraper  a  mile  high  ?  Well,  the  home  of  the  six-footed 
farmer  I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  now  is  as  much  taller 
than  he  is  as  a  mile-high  skyscraper  would  be  taller  than 
a  man.  The  remarkable  little  creatures  that  build  these 
skyscrapers  are  called  "termites."  Termites  are  also 
known  as  "white  ants."  This  seems  funny  when  we  know 
that  they  are  neither  "ants"  nor  are  they  white.  The 
young  of  the  workers  are  white,  to  be  sure,  but  the  grown- 
ups are  of  various  colors,  and  never  milky  white  as  they 
are  when  young.  The  termites  were  first  called  "white 
ants"  in  books  of  travel  because  the  termites  the  travellers 
saw  were  the  young  people. 

1  The  scientific  name  for  this  particular  kind  of  ant  is  Lasius  niger. 


ioo    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

HOW   TERMITES   ARE   LIKE   THE   ANTS 

The  termites  are  really  closer  relatives  of  dragon-flies, 
cockroaches,  and  crickets  than  of  the  ants,  but  they  do  look 
a  great  deal  like  an  ant,  and  they  have  many  of  the  ways 
of  the  ants.  As  in  the  case  of  ants,  all  the  members  of  one 
community  are  the  children  of  one  queen.  The  king  lives 
with  the  queen  in  a  private  apartment.  Sometimes — as 
with  human  royalties — the  king  and  queen  will  have  sepa- 
rate residences,  but  the  termite  royalties  always  live  in  the 
same  house  with  their  people;  they  are  very  democratic. 

Some  kinds  of  termites  live  in  rotten  trees,  which  they 
tunnel  into,  and  that  is  their  contribution  to  soil-making; 
while  others  build  great,  big  solid  houses  of  earth  and 
fibres,  mixed.  These  houses  are  called  "termitariums," 
and  are  six,  eight,  ten,  even  twenty-five  feet  high;  fully  1,000 
times  the  length  of  the  worker.  Think  of  a  man  five  feet 
high,  and  then  multiply  by  1,000,  and  you  see  you  have 
got  nearly  a  mile ! 

These  termite  skyscrapers  aren't  much  to  look  at  on  the 
outside,  but  inside  they're  just  fine;  they  have  everything 
the  most  particular  ant  could  want.  For  instance,  the 
termites  are  right  up-to-date  in  their  ideas  about  fresh  air, 
their  houses  being  well  ventilated  through  windows  left  in 
the  walls  for  that  purpose.  You  can  see  the  importance 
of  this  fresh-air  system  when  you  know  there  are  thousands 
of  termites  under  the  same  roof.  They  also  have  a  sewage 
system  for  carrying  off  the  water  of  the  rains.  And  a  fine 
piece  of  mechanical  engineering  the  building  of  it  is,  too; 
for  these  "water-pipes"  are  the  underground  passages  hol- 
lowed out  in  getting  the  clay  to  build  the  homes.  The  ter- 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS  WITH  SIX  FEET     101 


SKYSCRAPERS  A  MILE  HIGH 

"  Some  kinds  of  termites  build  great,  solid  houses  of  earth  and  fibres  mixed.  These  houses 
are  six,  eight,  ten,  even  twenty-five  feet  high,  fully  one  thousand  times  the  length  of  the 
worker.  Think  of  a  man  five  feet  high  and  then  multiply  by  one  thousand,  and  you  see  you 
have  got  nearly  a  mile." 

mites  build  their  homes  with  one  hand  and  dig  the  sewer 
with  the  other,  so  to  speak. 

THE   THERMOSTATS   FOR   THE   NURSERIES 

The  termitarium  has  as  many  rooms  in  it  as  a  big  hotel 
— oh,  I  don't  know  how  many — and  they  are  all  built 
around  the  chambers  of  the  king  and  queen.  Next  to  the 


102    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

royal  apartments  are  the  pantries,  a  lot  of  them,  and  they 
are  all  stored  with  food.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  termi- 
tarium  are  the  nurseries — many  nurseries — for  no  one 
nursery  could  care  for  any  such  numbers  of  babies  as  the 
queen  has.  Between  the  nursery  and  the  roof  is  an  air- 
space, and  there  are  also  air-spaces  on  the  sides  and  beneath. 
The  nursery  thus  being  surrounded  by  air,  the  eggs  and, 
when  they  come  along,  the  babies  are  protected  from 
changes  of  temperature.  It's  the  same  principle .  that's 
employed  in  making  refrigerators  and  thermos  bottles. 
The  rooms  in  which  the  eggs  are  kept  are  divided  by  walls 
made  of  fragments  of  wood  and  gum  glued  together.  This 
mixture  is  a  bad  conductor1  of  heat  or  cold.  And  so  the 
eggs  are  kept  at  an  even  temperature. 

While  we  cannot  see  any  of  the  termite  skyscrapers  in 
the  United  States,  because  we  have  none  of  the  species  of 
termites  that  build  them,  we  can  see  a  member  of  the  ter- 
mite family.  This  is  the  common  white  ant  that  digs 
into  joists  of  houses.  On  the  outside  of  these  same  joists, 
and  up  in»^he  attics  of  old  farmhouses,  if  there  happens  to 
be  a  broken  •  window-pane,  or  some  other  hole  through 
which  she  can  get  in,  you  can  see  the  nest  of  another 
tiller  of  the  soil,  the  wasp.  The  mason-wasps  or  mud 
daubers  are  the  most  common.  You  will  find  their  nests 
on  the  rafters  of  the  barn  when  you  go  to  throw  down  hay, 
or  when  you  go  into  the  corn-crib.  They  have  all  sorts  of 
fancies — these  wasps — about  their  clay  homes  and  where 
to  build  them.  Some  build  on  the  walls  and  some  in  the 
corners  of  rafters,  others  prefer  outdoor  life.  Some  want 

1A  "bad"  conductor  is  often  a  good  thing,  as  you'll  see  by  looking 
it  up  in  the  dictionary. 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS   WITH  SIX  FEET     103 

to  live  alone,  others  like  society.  What  are  known  as 
"social"  wasps  sometimes  build  their  nests  in  tiny  hollows 
that  they  dig  in  the  ground;  others  fasten  their  nests  to  the 
boughs  of  trees.  The  work  of  these  wasps,  from  the  farm- 


NESTS  OF  MASON-WASPS 


ing  standpoint,  is  useful  not  alone  in  grinding  the  soil,  but 
helping  to  supply  it  with  humus;  for  their  nests  are  made  of 
wood  fibre,  which  they  tear  with  their  mandibles  from  gate- 
posts, rail  fences,  and  the  bark  of  trees. 

The  carpenter-wasp  is  both  a  wood-worker  and  a  clay- 
worker.  He  cuts  tubular  nests  in  wood  and  divides  them 
by  partitions.  We  think  we're  pretty  smart,  we  humans, 
because  we  are  always  picking  up  ideas,  but  here's  a 
creature,  no  bigger  than  the  end  of  your  finger,  who  has 


THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

picked  up  an  idea  from  the  carpenter-bee,  grafted  it  on  his 
native  trade  of  clay-worker,  and  made  himself  as  nice  and 
cosey  a  country  place  as  you'd  want  to  see ! 

ABOUT   THE   WASP,    THE   FOX,  AND    THE   BUMBLEBEE 

Here's  another  example  of  the  same  thing,  this  spreading 
of  good  ideas  among  the  neighbors.  It's  about  the  fox, 
the  digger-wasps,  and  the  bumblebee.  The  fox  can  dig 
his  own  burrow  when  he  has  to,  but  if  he  finds  somebody 
else's  that  he  can  use,  he  just  helps  himself — provided,  of 
course,  the  owner  isn't  Brer  Bear,  or  some  other  big  fellow 
that  Brer  Fox  doesn't  care  to  have  any  words  with.  In  the 
same  way  the  digger-wasps  make  their  own  little  burrows 
if  they  are  obliged  to,  but  prefer  to  help  themselves  to  ones 
they  find  already  made,  although  they  don't  drive  anybody 
else  out.  They  simply  take  possession  of  holes  left  by  field- 
mice.  The  bumblebee  does  the  same  thing.  The  bumble- 
bee digs  a  hole  a  foot  or  more  deep,  carpets  it  with  leaves, 
and  lines  it  with  wax.  Leading  up  to  the  home  is  a  long, 
winding  tunnel.  As  Bumblebeeville  grows  bigger  there 
may  be  two  or  three  hundred  bees  in  one  nest.  As  the 
bumblebee  babies  keep  coming  and  coming,  the  burrow 
has  to  be  dug  bigger  and  bigger,  to  take  care  of  them. 

III.    THE  HOUSE  THAT  MRS.  MASON  BUILT 

But  the  greatest  of  bee  workers  in  the  soil  is  the  mason- 
bee.  You  can  get  an  idea  of  what  a  useful  citizen  the 
mason-bee  is  when  I  tell  you  that  one  of  the  little  villages 
of  one  species  sometimes  contains  enough  clay  to  make  a 
good  load  for  a  team  of  oxen.  Yet  for  all  that,  they  might 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS   WITH   SIX  FEET     105 


MASON-BEE  CELLS  AMONG  THE  ROCKS 


have  gone  on  with  their  work  for  years  and  years  to  come 
—just  as  they  have  for  ages  in  the  past — and  people 
wouldn't  have  thought  much  about  it,  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
some  boys. 

One  time,  in  a  village  in  southern  France,  a  school- 
teacher, who  was  getting  on  in  years,  took  his  small  class  of 
farmer  boys  outdoors  to  study  surveying — setting  up  stakes 
and  things,  you  know,  the  way  George  Washington  used 


io6    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

to  do.  It's  a  stony,  barren  land — this  part  of  France — and 
the  fields  are  covered  with  pebbles.  The  teacher  noticed 
that  often  when  he  sent  a  boy  to  plant  a  stake,  he  would 
stoop  every  once  in  a  while,  pick  up  a  pebble  and  stick  a 
straw  into  it !  That's  what  it  looked  like !  Then  he  would 
suck  the  straw. 

Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short,1  these  pebbles  had  on 
them  the  little  clay  cells  of  the  mason-bee.  Mrs.  Mason- 
Bee  fills  these  cells  with  honey,  lays  an  egg  in  the  honey, 
and  when  the  babies  come  along — don't  you  see  ?  In  other 
words,  Mother  Bee  not  only  puts  up  their  lunch  for  them, 
but  puts  them  right  into  the  lunch !  This  makes  it  con- 
venient all  around;  for,  like  almost  all  insect  mothers,  Mrs. 
Mason-Bee  is  never  there  after  the  babies  come. 

There  were  so  many  of  these  pebbles  scattered  over  the 
plain,  and  the  bees  that  were  building  new  homes  or  re- 
pairing old  ones  flew  so  straight  and  so  fast  between  the 
pebbles  and  a  near-by  road  that  "they  looked  like  trails 
of  smoke,"  as  Fabre  expresses  it. 

Now,  you  may  well  wonder  why  the  bees  .flew  clear  over 
to  that  road  to  get  dirt  to  build  their  nests  when  there 
was  plenty  of  loose  earth  right  at  their  own  door-steps; 
right  around  the  pebbles  themselves.  Isn't  that  queer? 

Well,  here's  something  that  sounds  stranger  still.  Mrs. 
Mason-Bee  takes  those  extra  trips  because  a  roadway  is 
so  much  harder  to  dig  in  !  It's  not  because  she  needs  the 
exercise,  goodness  knows — this  busy  Mrs.  Mason-Bee— 
but  because  the  hard  earth  of  the  roadway  makes  the 
strongest  homes;  that  is,  when  she  finally  gets  it  dug  out 

1  The  whole  story  is  told  in  the  famous  book,  "The  Mason  Bee," 
by  Henri  Fabre.  He  was  the  teacher. 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS  WITH  SIX  FEET     107 

and  worked  up.  And  here's  another  thing  that  will  seem 
odd  at  first;  although  the  soil  she  thus  works  over  must 
be  dampened  before  she  can  plaster  it  into  the  walls  of 
her  home,  she  just  won't  use  damp  soil  to  begin  with. 


Copyright  by  Brown  Brothers. 

FABRE  STUDYING  THE  MASON-BEE 

Nothing  will  do  her  but  dust,  and  dust  that  she  herself 
scrapes  from  the  roadway.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  the 
moisture  already  in  the  soil  will  not  answer  at  all.  She 
has  got  to  knead  the  soil  carefully  and  thoroughly  with 
saliva,  which  acts  as  a  kind  of  mortar.  This  saliva,  of 
course,  she  supplies. 


io8    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

And  the  dust  she  works  with  must  be  as  fine  as  powder 
and  as  dry  as  a  bone.  Then  it  absorbs  the  saliva,  and  when 
it  dries  it  is  almost  like  stone.  In  fact  it's  a  kind  of 
cement,  like  that  men  use  for  sidewalks  and  for  buildings 
and  bridges. 

But  this  wonderful  old  teacher  and  his  boys1  found 
that  even  this  isn't  all  this  little  house-builder  and  house- 
keeper has  to  think  of.  She  must  have  dust  that  is  really 
ground-up  stone !  So  she  digs  in  the  roadway  where  the 
bits  of  stone  in  this  stony  soil  have  been  ground  to  powder 
and  then  packed  hard  by  the  wheels  of  the  farmer's  cart 
and  by  the  hoofs  of  horses  and  oxen  drawing  their  heavy 
loads.  But  what  did  Mrs.  M.  B.  do  for  ground-up  stone 
in  the  long  ages  before  man  came  along  with  his  carts? 
Mr.  Earl  Reed,  who,  beside  being  the  distinguished  etcher 
of  "The  Dunes,"  is  a  close  observer  of  nature  in  general, 
tells  me  he  has  often  seen  a  mason-bee  gathering  the 
pulverized  stone  at  the  base  of  cliffs.  Evidently  the  mills 
of  the  wind  and  rain,  that  we  have  read  of  in  previous 
chapters,  had  Mrs.  B's  wants  in  mind  too. 

BEING   A  MASON-BEE   FOR   A   LITTLE    WHILE 

Now,  just  to  show  you  one  more  thing  about  Mrs. 
Mason-Bee  as  a  house-builder — how  clever  she  is — let's  try 
something  right  here.  Let's  suppose  ourselves — yourself 
and  myself — Mrs.  Mason-Bees.  We  have  got  a  home  to 
build  for  some  baby  mason-bees  that  will  be  along  by  and 
by.  Say  we  already  know  that  we  must  use  this  stone 

1  The  boys  were  a  great  help.  You  ought  to  see  what  Fabre  himself 
says  about  them  in  that  famous  book  of  his. 


THE  LITTLE  FARMERS   WITH  SIX  FEET     109 


SURFACE  MOUNDS  OF  THE  MASON-ANT 

There  are  mason-ants  as  well  as  mason-bees.    This  illustration  shows  the  works  thrown  up 
by  some  mason-ants  that  Dr.  McCook  found  in  a  garden  path  one  morning  in  May. 


no    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

dust  of  the  roadway,  and  that  we  must  make  our  mortar 
not  with  water  but  with  saliva.  Here's  the  next  problem: 

Shall  the  mixing  be  done  where  the  building  is  going  up 
over  there?  That's  the  way  human  masons  do  it.  But 
Mrs.  Mason-Bee  evidently  thinks  otherwise,  for  at  the 
very  time  she  is  prying  up  those  atoms  of  dust  with  so 
much  energy,  you  notice  she  is  doing  her  mixing.  She 
rolls  and  kneads  her  mortar  until  she  has  it  in  the  shape  of 
a  ball  as  big  as  she  can  possibly  carry.  Then  "buz-z-z-z  !" 
Away  she  goes,  straight  as  an  arrow,  back  home,  and  the 
mortar  is  spread  where  it  is  needed. 

You  see,  after  all,  this  is  the  best  way.-  If  she  didn't 
turn  the  dust  into  mortar  before  she  started,  so  a  good- 
sized  lump  of  it  would  stick  together,  she  couldn't  carry 
much  of  it  at  a  time,  and  it  would  be  forever  and  a  day  be- 
fore she  could  get  her  house  built.  As  it  is,  the  pellets  she 
carries  are  of  the  size  of  small  shot;  a  pretty  big  load,  let  me 
tell  you,  for  a  little  body  no  bigger  than  Mrs.  Mason-Bee. 

And  remember,  this  goes  on  all  day  long  from  sunrise 
to  sunset.  Without  a  moment's  rest,  she  adds  her  pellets 
to  the  growing  walls  and  then  back  she  goes  to  the  precise 
spot  where  she  has  found  the  building  material  that  best 
suits  her  needs. 

In  building  a  nest,  the  mason-bee,  in  going  to  and  fro, 
day  after  day,  travels,  on  the  average,  about  275  miles; 
half  the  distance  across  the  widest  part  of  France.  All  in 
about  five  or  six  weeks,  she  does  this.  Then  her  work  is 
over.  She  retires  to  some  quiet  place  under  the  stones, 
and  dies.  As  I  said,  she  never  sees  the  babies  she  has  done 
so  much  for. 

And  although  they  are  so  stoutly  built,  the  houses  of 


THE  LITTLE   FARMERS  WITH  SIX  FEET     in 

the  mason-bees,  like  those  "cloud-capped  towers  and  gor- 
geous palaces"  that  Shakespere  speaks  of,  finally  go  back 
to  the  dust.  But  while  one  of  these  little  mothers  is  build- 
ing a  new  home  or  repairing  an  old  one  left  by  a  mother  of 
the  previous  year,  you  would  suppose  the  fate  of  the  world 
hung  on  it;  as  indeed  the  fate  of  the  world  of  mason-bees 
does. 

Scrape !  Scrape !  Scrape  !  With  the  tips  of  those  little 
jaws,  her  mandibles,  she  makes  the  stony  dust. 

Rake  !  Rake !  Rake  !  With  her  front  feet  she  gathers 
and  mixes  it  with  the  saliva  from  her  mouth. 

How  eager  and  excited  she  gets,  how  wrapped  up  in 
her  work  as  she  digs  away  in  the  hard-packed  mass  in  the 
tracks  of  the  roadway!  Passing  horses  and  oxen,  and  the 
French  peasants  with  their  wooden  shoes,  are  almost  on 
her  before  she  will  budge.  And  even  then  she  only  flits 
aside  until  the  danger  has  passed.  Then  down  she  drops 
^nd  at  it  again ! 

But  sometimes,  the  boys  and*  the  teacher  found,  she 
starts  to  move  too  late — so  absorbed  is  she,  it  would  seem, 
in  the  thought  of  that  tiny  little  home  over  there  among 
the  pebbles. 

Poor  little  lady ! 

HIDE  AND   SEEK  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

Perhaps  nothing  in  nature  is  more  wonderful  than  an  insect; 
particularly  when  you  consider  that  he  is  only  an  insect !  So,  of 
course,  whole  libraries  have  been  written  about  insects.  Here  are 
a  few  of  the  most  interesting  books  dealing  with  the  subject: 
Beard's  "Boy's  Book  of  Bugs,  Butterflies  and  Beetles";  Comstock's 
"Ways  of  the  Six-Footed";  Crading's  "Our  Insect  Friends  and 
Foes";  Doubleday's  "Nature's  Garden";  Du  Puy's  "Trading  Bugs 
with  the  Nations."  This  about  trading  bugs  is  an  article  in  "Uncle 


H2    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Sam:  Wonder  Worker,"  and  tells  how  Uncle  Sam  "swaps"  with 
other  nations  to  get  rid  of  injurious  insects  and  bring  in  useful  ones. 

Grant  Allen's  "  Sextons  and  Scavengers  "  ("  Nature's  Work  Shop  ") 
tells  many  curious  things  about  the  sexton  beetles;  how,  by  tasting 
bad,  they  keep  birds  and  things  from  eating  them;  why  you  will 
always  find  an  even  number — never  an  odd  number — of  sextons  at 
work  together;  what  they  use  for  spades  in  their  digging;  why  male 
sextons  bury  their  wives  alive,  and  why  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  these  weird  little  insects  have  a  sense  of  beauty  and  of  music. 

The  same  essay  tells  about  the  sacred  beetle  of  the  Egyptians, 
the  insect  that  we  know  as  the  "tumblebug";  why  first  the  Egyp- 
tians and  then  the  Greeks  regarded  this  bug  as  sacred;  and  why 
men  and  women  wear  imitation  beetles  for  brooches  and  watch- 
charms  to-day. 

But  the  greatest  work  on  this  famous  beetle  has  been  written  by 
the  famous  French  observer  Fabre,  "The  Homer  of  the  Insect." 
You  will  find  this  book,  "The  Sacred  Beetle,"  in  any  good  public 
library.  Among  other  things  Fabre  gives  a  very  minute  descrip- 
tion of  the  variety  of  tools  used  by  the  beetle;  tells  how  two  beetles 
roll  a  ball;1  how  they  dig  their  holes;  how  they  "play  possum," 
and  then  (I'm  almost  ashamed  to  tell  this)  rob  their  partners r 
How  they  wipe  the  dust  out  of  their  eyes;  about  a  tumblebug's 
wheelbarrow;  why  their  underground  burrows  sometimes  have 
winding  ways;  why  there  are  fewer  beetles  in  hard  times;  about 
their  autumn  gaieties;  their  value  as  weather-prophets,  and  how 
Fabre's  little  son  Paul  helped  him  in  writing  his  great  book. 

Allen's  essay,  "The  Day  of  the  Canker  Worm"  in  "Nature's 
Work  Shop,"  tells  many  interesting  things  about  the  Cicada,  the 
locust  that  only  comes  once  in  seventeen  years;2  about  Lady 
Locust's  saw  (it  looks  like  a  cut-out  puzzle) ;  about  the  clay  galleries 
the  locusts  build  when  they  come  up  out  of  the  ground;  how  many 
times  they  have  to  put  on  new  dresses  before  they  finally  look  like 
locusts;  why,  at  one  stage  of  the  process,  they  look  like  ghosts, 
and  how  they  blow  up  their  wings  as  you  do  a  bicycle  tire. 

(Fabre's  book  on  the  sacred  beetle  also  deals,  incidentally,  with 
the  Cicada.) 

1  You've  often  noticed  them,  haven't  you?  Now  read  Fabre's 
wonderful  book  and  see  how  much  you  didn't  notice. 

!  "And  that's  once  too  many,"  as  the  old  farmer  said;  and  we  must 
agree  with  him  when  we  think  only  of  the  damage  they  do. 


Often  one  thing  is  named  after  another  from  a  merely  fanciful 
resemblance,  as,  for  instance,  the  "sea  horse."  But  the  mole 
cricket  really  seems  to  have  been  patterned  on  the  mole;  either  that, 
or  both  the  four-legged  and  the  six-legged  moles  were  patterned 
after  something  else.  Mole  crickets  are  very  useful  little  people 
to  know.  You  should  see  how  they  protect  their  nest-eggs  from 
the  weather  and  how  and  why  they  move  their  nests  up  and  down 
with  the  change  of  the  seasons. 

What  good  to  the  soil  do  the  insects  do  that  eat  up  dead-wood  ? 
Scott  Elliott,  in  his  "Romance  of  Plant  Life,"  deals  with  this  sub- 
ject. 

The  mining  bees  are  very  interesting,  and  some  of  these  days, 
perhaps  millions  of  years  hence,  they  will  be  still  more  interesting, 
for  they  are  learning  to  work  together,  although  not  to  the  extent 
that  the  bees  and  ants  do.  Working  together  seems  to  develop 
the  brains  of  insects  just  as  it  does  human  beings.  Thomson's 
"Biology  of  the  Seasons"  tells  how  the  mining  bees  are  learning 
"team-work." 

The  tarantula  spider  is  a  relation  of  the  six-footed  farmers,  you 
should  know,  although  he  is  not  an  insect  himself.  In  "Animal 
Arts  and  Crafts"  in  the  "Romance  of  Science"  series  you  will  find 
how,  in  his  digging,  he  makes  little  pellets  of  earth,  wraps  them  up 
in  silk,  and  then  shoots  them  away,  somewhat  as  a  boy  shoots  a 
marble. 

The  same  book  tells  why  the  trap-door  spider  usually  builds  on 
a  slope.  It  also  tells  why  she  puts  on  the  front  door  soon  after 
beginning  her  house.  (This  looks  funny,  but  you  wouldn't  think 
it  was  so  funny  if  you  were  a  trap-door  spider  and  you  had  a  cer- 
tain party  for  a  neighbor,  as  you  will  agree  when  you  look  it  up.) 

The  door,  by  the  way,  has  a  peculiar  edge  to  make  it  fit  tight. 
What  kind  of  an  edge  would  you  put  on  a  door  to  make  it  fit  tight? 
(Look  at  the  stopper  in  the  vinegar-cruet  and  see  if  it  will  give 
you  an  idea.) 

This  book  also  tells  about  a  certain  wasp  that  makes  pottery 
and  gets  her  clay  from  the  very  same  bank  that  certain  other  people 
depend  on  for  their  potter's  clay.  This-  wasp  sings  at  her  work 
and  has  three  different  songs  for  different  parts  of  the  work. 


THE  FIELD  MOUSE  AND  THE  FARMER 

When  we  remember  how  much  soil  the  field  mouse  worked  over,  and  so  made  better,  long 
before  man's  time  on  earth — to  say  nothing  of  what  the  mice  have  done  since — doesn't  it  give 
an  added  and  deeper  meaning  to  the  lines  of  Burns? 

"I  doubt  na,  whyles,  but  thou  may  thieve. 
What  then?     Poor  beastie,  thou  maun  live." 


CHAPTER  VII 

(JULY) 

Well  said,  old  mole !     Canst  work  i*  the  earth  so  fast  ? 

— Shakespere :  ' '  Hamlet. ' ' 

FARMERS   WITH   FOUR  FEET 

Before  we  start  this  chapter — it's  going  to  be  about 
the  farmers  with  four  feet,  you  see — I  want  to  say  some- 
thing, and  that's  this:  Don't  let  anybody  tell  you  moles  eat 
roots.  They  don't !  They  eat  the  cutworms  that  do  eat 
the  roots.  Haven't  I  been  in  mole  runs  often  enough  to 
know !  Of  course,  the  moles  do  cut  a  root  here  and  there 

114 


FARMERS  WITH  FOUR  FEET  115 

occasionally  when  it  happens  to  be  in  the  way,  as  they 
tunnel  along,  but  what  does  that  amount  to? 

Why,  in  France  they  put  Mr.  Mole  in  vineyards — on 
purpose !  He's  one  of  the  regular  hands  about  the  place, 
just  like  the  hired  man. 

I.     MR.  MOLE  AND  His  RELATIONS 

Moles  do  a  lot  of  good  work  for  the  farmer.  Not  only 
were  they  ploughing  and  ploughing  and  ploughing  the 
soil — over  and  over  again — thousands  of  centuries  before 
man  came  along  to  plant  seed  in  it,  but  they  are  all  the 
time  eating,  among  other  things,  destructive  worms  and 
insects  in  the  soil.  They  work  all  over  the  world,  that  is 
to  say,  in  the  upper  half  of  it — the  Northern  Hemisphere; 
and  there's  where  the  biggest  half  of  the  land  is,  if  I  haven't 
forgotten  my  geography. 

WONDERFUL   LITTLE   MACHINES   ON  FOUR  LEGS 

Closely  related  to  the  moles  are  the  shrews — quaint 
little  mouse-like  creatures  with  long,  pointed  heads  and 
noses  that  they  can  twist  about  almost  any  way  in  hunt- 
ing their  meals  and  finding  out  other  things  in  this  big 
world  that  concern  them.  On  these  funny,  long  noses 
they  have  whiskers  like  a  pussy-cat;  and  that  helps,  too, 
when  you  want  to  keep  posted  on  what's  going  on  around 
you.  Like  the  moles  the  shrews  are  found  all  over  the 
Northern  Hemisphere.  What  is  known  as  the  "long- tailed 
shrew,"  is  the  very  smallest  of  our  relations  among  the 
mammalia.  Why,  they're  no  bigger  than  the  end  of  a 
man's  little  finger;  and  the  smallest  watch  /  ever  heard 


n6'  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


THE  COMMON  AND  THE  SHORT-TAILED  SHREW 


of  was  a  good  deal  bigger  than  that.  Yet,  inside  these  wee 
bodies  is  as  much  machinery  as  it  takes  to  run  any  other 
mammal — an  elephant,  say. 

The  shrews  get  around  very  fast,  considering  their  size; 
and  they're  on  the  go  all  the  time.  I  never  saw  such  busy- 
bodies;  nosing  about  in  the  old  leaves  and  dead  grass  and 
under  logs  and  boring  into  loose  loam,  punky  wood,  de- 
cayed stumps — anywhere  you'd  be  likely  to  find  a  worm, 
a  grub,  a  beetle,  or  a  slug.  Hard  workers,  these  shrews, 
but  so  quarrelsome !  When  two  Mr.  Shrews  meet  there's 
pretty  sure  to  be  trouble.  They're  regular  little  swash- 
bucklers among  themselves;  and — the  queerest  thing, 
until  you  know  why — they  don't  seem  to  be  afraid  even 
of  cats.  Fancy  telling  Cousin  Mouse  that!  But  it  isn't 
because  the  shrews  wouldn't  be  afraid  if  the  cats  got  after 
them,  but  because  cats  always  let  shrews  alone.  They 
don't  taste  good! 

Shrews  are  so  nimble  on  their  tiny  feet  and  so  quick  of 
hearing,  they  are  very  hard  to  catch.  And  please  don't 


FARMERS   WITH  FOUR  FEET  117 

try !  You  simply  can't  tame  them,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact 
they're  so  fierce  and  bold  at  home — among  their  own  kind 
— they're  easily  frightened  to  death.  A  shock  of  fear  and 
that  wonderful  little  heart  engine  of  theirs  stops  short — 
never  to  go  again.. 

MR.  MOLE'S  PAWS  AND  HOW  HE  WORKS  THEM 

But  while  the  shrews  can  get  around  so  much  faster 
above  ground  the  moles  are  the  most  remarkable  travellers 
under  ground.  The  mole's  paws,  you  notice,  are  turned 
outward,  as  one's  hands  are  when  swimming.  In  fact  he 
does  almost  swim  through  the  soft,  loose  soil — so  fast 
does  he  move  along !  His  two  shovels,  with  the  muscles 
that  work  them,  weigh  as  much  as  all  the  rest  of  his  body. 
Why,  he  has  a  chest  like  an  athlete !  He  pierces  the  soil 
with  his  muzzle  and  then  clears  it  away  with  his  paws. 
His  skull  is  shaped  like  a  wedge.  He  has  a  strong,  boring 
snout  and  a  smooth,  round  body. 

This  snout,  by  the  way,  has  a  bone  near  the  tip.  You 
see  how  handy  that  would  come  in,  don't  you?  At  the 
same  time,  although  it's  so  hard — this  snout  of  his — it's 


THE  CILIATED  SHREW 


n8    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

very  sensitive,  like  the  fingers  of  the  blind;  for  Mr.  Mole 
must  always  be  feeling  his  way  along  in  the  dark,  you 
know. 

The  kind  of  moles  you  find  in  Europe  live  in  what  seem 
to  be  little  earthen  fortresses,  and  the  tops,  sticking  above 
ground,  make  hillocks.  In  each  of  these  little  forts  there 
is  a  central  chamber;  then  outside  of  this,  running  all  the 


SECTION  OF  MR.  MOLE'S  CASTLE 

This  is  a  cross-section  of  a  mole-hill,  showing  the  central  chamber  and  the  rooms  leading 
into  it. 


way  around,  are  two  galleries,  one  above  the  other.  The 
upper  gallery  has  several  openings  into  the  central  cham- 
ber. The  galleries  are  connected  by  two  straight  up-and- 
down  shafts.  From  the  lower  galleries  several  passages, 
usually  from  eight  to  ten,  lead  away  to  where  the  moles  go 
out  to  feed;  and  if  there  is  a  body  of  water  near  by — a  pond 
or  a  creek,  say — there's  a  special  tunnel  leading  to  that. 

Mr.  Mole  works  hard  and  he  sleeps  hard.  The  big  mid- 
dle room  in  his  home  is  the  bedchamber  of  Mr.  Mole  and 
his  family.  Usually  he  sleeps  soundly  all  night,  but  occa- 
sionally, on  fine  Summer  nights,  he  comes  out  and  enjoys 
the  air. 


FARMERS  WITH  FOUR  FEET 


119 


You'd'  think    he'd    get    awfully    dirty,    wouldn't   you, 
boring  his  way  along  in  the  ground  all  the  time?    But  he 


THE  COMMON  AND  THE  STAR-NOSED  MOLE 


doesn't.  His  hair  is  always  as  spick  and  span  as  if  he'd 
just  come  out  of  the  barber-shop.  Do  you  know  why? 
It's  because  he  wears  his  hair  pompadoured.  It  grows 
straight  out  from  the  skin.  So  you  see  he  can  go  back- 
ward and  forward — as  he  is  obliged  to  do  constantly  in 


120    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  day's  work — without  mussing  it  up  at  all.  If  it  lay 
down,  like  yours  or  like  pussy-cat's,  it  would  get  into  an 
awful  mess!  In  France  the  children  call  Mr.  Mole  "The 
Little  Gentleman  in  the  Velvet  Coat." 


II.    FOUR-FOOTED  FARMERS  THAT  WEAR  ARMOR 

But,  speaking  of  coats,  I  want  to  introduce  you  to  a 
still  more  rapid  worker  in  the  soil,  who  wears  a  coat  of  mail. 
He  is  called  the  armadillo.  There  used  to  be  a  species  of 
armadillo  in  western  Texas.  Whether  there  are  any  there 
still  I  don't  know,1  but  go  on  down  to  South  America  and 
you'll  find  all  you  want.  The  woods  are  full  of  them,  and 
so  are  those  vast  prairies — the  pampas.  The  plates  in 
the  armadillo's  coat  of  mail  are  not  made  of  steel,  of  course, 
but  of  bone.  These  bony  plates  are  each  separate  from 
the  other  on  most  of  his  body  but  made  into  solid  bucklers 
over  the  shoulders  and  the  hips.  The  armadillos  have 
very  short,  stout  legs  and  very  long,  strong  claws,  and 
how  they  can  dig !  They  can  dig  fast  in  any  kind  of  soil, 
but  in  the  loose  soil  of  the  pampas  they  dig  so  fast  that  if 
you  happen  to  catch  sight  of  one  when  out  riding  and  he 
sees  you,  you'll  have  to  start  toward  him  with  your  horse 
on  the  run  if  you  want  to  see  anything  more  of  him.  Be- 
fore you  can  get  to  him  and  throw  yourself  from  the  sad- 
dle, he'll  have  buried  himself  in  the  ground.  And  you 
can't  catch  him;  not  even  if  you  have  a  spade  and  dig 
away  with  all  your  might.  He'll  dig  ahead  of  you,  faster — 
a  good  deal  faster — than  you  can  follow. 

1  One  of  my  friends  in  the  faculty  of  the  University  of  Chicago  tells 
me  there  are  still  a  good  many  armadillos  in  Texas. 


FARMERS  WITH  FOUR  FEET  121 

MR.  ARMADILLO'S  REMARKABLE  NOSE  DRILL 

For  all  he  looks  so  knightly,  so  far  as  his  armor  is  con- 
cerned, the  armadillo  is  timid,  peaceful,  and  never  looking 
for  trouble  with  anybody,  but  once  aroused  rights  fiercely 
and  does  much  damage  with  his  long  hooked  claws.  His 
chief  diet  is  ants.  These  he  finds  with  his  nose.  He  locates 
them  by  scent  and  then  bores  in  after  them.  You'd  think 
he'd  twist  it  off.  that  long  nose  of  his;  he  turns  it  first  one 
way  and  then  the  other,  like  a  gimlet.  And  so  fast! 

The  armadillo  dislikes  snakes  as  much  as  all  true  knights 
disliked  dragons.  That  is,  he  doesn't  like  them  socially; 
although  he's  quite  fond  of  them  as  a  variation  in  diet. 
He'll  leap  on  a  snake,  paying  not  the  slightest  attention  to 
his  attempts  to  bite  through  that  coat  of  mail,  and  tear 
him  into  bits  and  eat  him. 

Another  armored  knight  that  eats  snakes  and  that  other 
animals  seldom  eat — much  as  they'd  like  to — is  the  hedge- 
hog. If  you  were  a  fox,  instead  of  a  boy  or  girl,  I  wouldn't 
have  to  tell  you  about  how  hard  it  is  to  serve  hedgehog 
at  the  family  table.  One  of  the  earliest  things  a  little  fox 
learns  in  countries  where  there  are  hedgehogs  is  to  let  the 
hedgehog  alone. 

"Hedgehogs  would  be  very  nice — to  eat,  I  mean — if  they 
weren't  so  ugly  about  not  wanting  to  be  eaten." 

We  can  imagine  Mamma  Fox  saying  that  to  the  chil- 
dren. Then  she  goes  on: 

"The  whole  ten  inches  of  a  hedgehog — he's  about  that 
long — are  covered  with  short,  stiff,  sharp,  gray  spines. 
He's  easy  to  catch — just  ambles  along,  hardly  lifting  his 
short  legs  from  the  ground.  And  he  goes  about  at  night — 


122     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

just  when  we  foxes  are  out  marketing.  That  would  be  so 
handy,  don't  you  see;  but  the  trouble  is  about  those  nasty 
spines  of  his.  Try  to  catch  him  and  he  rolls  up  into  a  ball 
with  all  his  spines — they're  sharp  as  needles — sticking  out 
everywhere,  and  every  which  way.  And — well,  you  simply 
can't  get  at  him,  that's  all.  So  just  don't  have  anything 
to  do  with  him.  It's  only  a  waste  of  time." 

Hedgehogs  live  in  hedges  and  thickets  and  in  narrow 
gulches  covered  with  bushes.  They  do  their  share  of 
ploughing  when  nosing  about  with  their  pig-like  snouts  for 
slugs,  snails,  and  insects,  and  when  they  dig  places  for 
their  home  nests.  These  homes  they  line  with  moss, 
grass,  and  leaves,  and  in  them  spend  the  long  Winter,  in- 
different to  the  tempests  and  the  cold. 

But  there's  another  place  to  look  for  hedgehogs,  and  you 
never  would  guess !  In  people's  kitchens.  If  you  ever  go 
to  England  you'll  find  them  in  many  country  homes,  help- 
ing with  the  work.  They're  great  on  cockroaches,  and 
they're  perfectly  safe  from  the  cat  and  the  dog.  Both 
Puss  and  Towser  know  all  about  those  spines,  just  as  well 
as  Mrs.  Fox  does. 

When  they've  eaten  all  the  cockroaches,  give  them  some 
cooked  vegetables,  porridge,  or  bread  and  milk,  and  they'll 
be  perfectly  content.  They're  easy  to  tame  and  get  very 
friendly. 

In  the  wild  state,  besides  the  insects  and  things  I  men- 
tioned, they  eat  snakes;  and  poison  snakes,  too !  The 
poison  never  seems  to  bother  them  at  all.  Their  table 
manners  are  interesting,  also,  when  it  comes  to  eating 
snakes.  They  always  begin  at  the  tail.1  They'd  no  more 

1  Isn't  that  the  way  a  toad  swallows  an  angleworm  ?  Or  how  does 
he  do  it? 


FARMERS   WITH   FOUR   FEET 


123 


Door* 


Btnt4 


JBtmtt 


HIGHWAYS  OF  GROUND-SQUIRREL  TOWN 

Almost  as  crooked  as  the  streets  of  London  town,  aren't  they?  And  as  hard  to  find  one's 
way  about  in — unless,  of  course,  one  were  a  ground-squirrel.  This  is  the  burrow  of  a  Rich- 
ardson ground-squirrel  sketched  by  Thompson  Seton,  near  Whitewater,  Manitoba. 

think  of  eating  a  snake  any  other  way  than  one  would  of 
picking  up  the  wrong  fork  at  a  formal  dinner. 


UNDER  THE  HEDGEHOG  S  WATER-PROOF  ROOF 

That's  one  of  the  things  about  good  manners  Mamma 
Hedgehog  teaches  the  babies,  I  suppose.     Of  these  she  has 


124    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

from  two  to  four,  and  she  makes  a  curious  nest  especially 
for  them;  a  nest  with  a  roof  on  it  that  sheds  rain  like  any 
other  roof.  Just  as  it  is  with  puppies  and  kittens,  the 
babies  are  born  blind;  and  not  only  that,  but  they  can't 
hear  at  first,  either.  While  they  are  young  their  spines — I 
don't  mean  their  back-bones,  but  their  other  spines — are 
soft,  but  they  become  hard  as  the  babies  grow  and  open 
their  eyes  and  ears  on  the  world.  The  muscles  on  their 
backs  get  very  thick  and  strong,  so  that  when  they  don't 
want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  anybody — say  a  fox,  or 
a  dog,  or  a  weasel — they  just  pull  the  proper  muscle 
strings  and  tie  themselves  up  into  a  kind  of  bag  made  of 
their  own  needle-cushion  skins,  with  the  needles  all  stick- 
ing out,  point  up ! 

III.    A  VISIT  TO  SOME  FARM  VILLAGES 

TWELVE    LITTLE   MARMOTS   ALL   IN   ONE   BED 

Next  I'd  like  you  to  visit  with  me  certain  other  farmers 
who  remind  us  of  the  Middle  Ages  also;  not  because  they 
wear  armor,  like  the  armadillos  and  the  hedgehogs  and  the 
lords  of  castles,  but  because  they  live  in  farm  villages  as 
the  fanner  peasants  used  to  do  around  the  castles  of  the 
lords.  Moreover,  one  reason  they  live  together  in  this  way 
is  for  protection — 'just  as  it  was  with  the  peasants — only 
among  these  little  democrats  there's  no  overlord  business; 
each  one's  home  is  his  castle.  Another  reason  for  this  vil- 
lage arrangement  is  that  it's  such  a  sociable  way  to  live; 
and  they're  great  society  people,  these  farm  villagers.  The 
marmots,  for  example,  the  largest  and  heaviest  of  the 
squirrel  family,  just  love  company.  In  their  mountain 


FARMERS  WITH  FOUR  FEET  125 

country — they're  mountain  people,  the  marmots — they 
play  together,  work  together,  and  during  the  long,  cold 
night  of  Winter  snuggle  together  in  their  burrows.  Their 
burrows  are  close  by  each  other  among  the  rocks.  They 
have  both  Summer  and  Winter  residences.  In  Summer 
they  go  away  up  in  the  mountains,  hollow  out  their  bur- 
rows and  raise  their  babies.  When  the  snows  of  late 
Autumn  send  them  down  the  mountainsides,  twelve  or 
fifteen  of  them,  all  working  together,  pitch  in  and  make 
a  tunnel  in  the  soil  among  the  rocks,  enlarging  it  at  the 
end  into  a  big  room.  Next  they  put  in  a  good  pile  of  dry 
hay,  carefully  close  the  front  door  and  lock  it  up  with 
stones  caulked  with  grass  and  moss.  Then  they  all  cuddle 
down  together,  as  snug  as  you  please,  and  stay  there  until 
Spring. 

Another  member  of  the  marmot  family  who  is  very  fond 
of  good  company  is  the  prairie-dog.  There  may  be  thou- 
sands in  a  prairie-dog  town.  Each  little  prairie-dog  home 
has  in  front  of  it  a  mound  something  like  an  Eskimo's  hut. 
The  prairie-dogs  make  these  mounds  in  digging  out  their 
burrows.  They  pile  the  dirt  right  at  the  front  door.  This 
may  not  look  neat  to  us,  but  you'll  see  it's  just  the  thing — 
this  dirt  pile — when  you  know  what  the  prairie-dog  does 
with  it.  He  uses  it  as  a  watch-tower. 

When,  from  this  watch-tower,  he  spies  certain  people  he 
doesn't  want  to  meet,  you  ought  to  see  how  quickly  he  can 
make  for  his  front  door  and  into  the  house !  The  tunes  are 
still  lawless  where  the  prairie-dog  lives,  and  he  has  to  be 
on  the  lookout  all  the  while  for  coyotes,  for  foxes,  for 
badgers,  for  the  black-footed  ferret  and  the  old  gray  wolf; 
to  say  nothing  of  hawks  and  brown  owls. 


126    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

SUCH  NEAT  CHAMBERMAIDS! 

The  prairie-dogs  like  sandy  or  gravelly  soil  for  their 
homes,  and  in  making  them  they  do  a  lot  of  ploughing. 
And  besides  they  supply  this  same  soil  with  a  great  deal  of 
humus — the  grass  that  they  use  for  bedding.  They're  very 
particular  about  changing  their  beds  every  day;  always 
clearing  out  the  old  bedding  and  putting  in  new.  They  do 


THIS  MUST  BE  A  PLEASANT  DAY 

In  nice  weather  the  Prairie  Dog's  front  door  stands  wide  open  like  this,  but  before  a  rain 
he  stuffs  it  tight  with  grass  because,  when  it  does  rain  in  the  arid  regions  where  he  lives,  it 
comes  down  in  bucketfuls ! 

this  along  about  sundown.  You  can  see  them  do  it  right 
in  New  York  City,  for  there  is  a  flourishing  colony  of  them 
at  the  zoo. 

Mr.  Prairie-Dog  is  about  a  foot  long  and  as  fat  as  butter. 
The  reason  he's  called  a  dog  isn't  because  he  is  a  dog  or 
even  looks  like  one,  but  because  he  has  a  sharp  little  bark 
like  a  very  much  excited  puppy.  He  thinks  he  sees  some- 
thing suspicious :  ' '  Yap !  Yap ! ' ' 


FARMERS   WITH  FOUR  FEET  127 

Or  he  spies  a  neighbor  down  the  street:  "Yap!  Yap! 
Hello,  neighbor !  Looks  like  another  fine  day,  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"Yap!  Yap !"  says  neighbor.  (This  " yap "  passes  for 
"yes,"  no  doubt — although  it  isn't  quite  the  way  Mr. 
Webster  would  say  it,  perhaps.) 

Then  maybe  a  neighbor  from  away  over  on  the  avenue, 
that  he  hasn't  seen  for  some  time,  comes  calling — as  they're 
always  doing,  these  neighborly  little  chaps.  Then  it's: 

"Yap!  Yap!  Yap!  Yap!  Why,  how  are  you?  And 
what  have  you  been  doing  ?  And  how  are  the  little  folks  ?  " 

And  so  it  goes,  all  day  long. 

The  prairie-dog's  native  home  is  on  our  Western  plains, 
but  he  has  a  cousin  away  off  in  South  America — although 
he  may  never  have  heard  of  him — called  the  viscacha. 

The  viscachas  live  on  the  great  grassy  plains  of  the  La 
Plata  in  colonies  of  twenty  or  more,  in  villages  of  deep- 
chambered  burrows  with  large  pit-like  entrances  grouped 
close  together;  so  close,  in  fact,  that  the  whole  village  makes 
one  large  irregular  mound,  thirty  to  forty  feet  in  diameter 
and  two  to  three  feet  high.  These  villages  being  on  the 
level  prairie,  the  viscachas  are  careful  to  build  them  high 
enough  so  that  floods  will  not  reach  them.  They  make  a 
clear  space  all  around  the  town.  In  doing  this  these  little 
people  seem  to  have  two  purposes:  (i)  To  make  it  more 
difficult  for  enemies  to  slip  up  on  them  unnoticed,  and 
(2)  to  furnish  a  kind  of  athletic  field  for  the  community; 
for  it  is  in  these  open  spaces  that  they  have  their  foot-races, 
wrestling  matches,  and  the  like. 

If  you  ever  happen  down  their  way,  the  first  thing  that 
will  strike  you  is  the  enormous  size  of  the  entrances  to  the 
central  burrows.  You'd  think  somebody  as  big  as  a  bear 


128    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

lived  in  them.  The  entrance  is  four  to  six  feet  across  and 
deep  enough  for  a  tall  man  to  .stand  in  up  to  the  waist. 

Like  our  prairie-dogs,  the  viscachas  are  very  sociable, 
and  little  paths,  the  result  of  neighborly  calls,  lead  from 
one  village  to  another.  They  are  neighborly  indeed;  and 
in  the  Bible  sense.  Of  course,  they  like  to  get  together  of 
an  evening  and  talk  things  over  and  gossip  and  all  that, 
but  that  isn't  the  end  of  it.  To  take  an  instance:  These 
South  American  prairie-dogs,  like  our  prairie-dogs  up 
North,  are  not  popular  with  the  cattlemen;  and  the  cattle- 
men, to  get  rid  of  them,  bury  whole  villages  with  earth. 
Then  neighbors  from  distant  burrows  come — just  as  soon 
as  the  cattlemen  go  away — and  dig  them  out ! 

Another  ploughman  besides  the  prairie-dog  and  the 
viscacha,  who  isn't  popular  with  farmers — although 
Thompson  Seton  calls  him  "The  Master  Ploughman  of 
the  West" — is  the  pocket-gopher.  He  has  farmed  it  from 
Canada  to  Texas,  all  through  the  fertile  Mississippi  Valley. 
The  reason  he  has  that  queer  expression  on  his  face — you 
couldn't  help  noticing  it — is  that  each  cheek  has  a  big  out- 
side pocket  in  it;  and,  like  the  big  pockets  in  a  small  boy's 
trousers,  they're  there  for  business.  On  each  forefoot  he 
has  a  set  of  long  claws;  and  dig,  you  should  see  him !  He's 
a  regular  little  steam-shovel.  He  sinks  his  burrow  below 
the  frost-line  and  into  this,  stuffed  in  his  two  pockets,  he 
carries  food  to  eat  when  he  wakes  up  during  the  following 
Spring,  before  earth's  harvests  are  ripe. 

IV.    THE  HOME  OF  THE  RED  Fox 

Another  country  gentleman,  not  as  popular  with  his 
neighbors,  I  must  say,  as  he  might  be,  but  whose  people, 


FARMERS  WITH  FOUR  FEET 


129 


in  the  course  of  the  ages,  have  done  a  good  deal  of  plough- 
ing, is  Brer  Fox.  I  mean  particularly  the  red  fox,  for  the 
gray  fox  usually  lives  in  hollow  trees  or  in  ready-made 
houses  among  the  rocks  of  the  mountainside. 


j;     (  r  CONTINENT  fa 
VV(H.  *' 

^- 


MR.  P.  GOPHER  AS  THE  MASTER  PLOUGHMAN 

Thompson  Seton  calls  the  pocket -gopher  "the  master  ploughman  of  the  West,"  and  this  is 
how  he  illustrates  the  extent  of  his  labors. 


THE  THREE  ROOMS  IN  THE  FOX  HOUSE 

* 

The  red  fox  is  the  cunningest  of  his  tribe.  One  of  the 
ways  he  shows  his  cunning — and  also  his  lack  of  conscience, 
in  dealings  outside  the  fox  family — is  in  his  way  of  getting 
a  home.  Whenever  he  can  find  a  burrow  of  a  badger,  for 


130    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

example,  he  drives  the  badger  out  and  then  enlarges  the 
place  to  suit  his  own  needs.  For  Mr.  Fox's  residence  is 
quite  an  affair.  Usually  it  has  three  rooms;  the  front 
room  where  either  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Fox — depending  on  which 
is  going  marketing — stops  and  looks  about  to  see  if  the 
coast  is  clear;  back  of  that  the  storeroom  for  food,  and 
behind  this  the  family  bedroom  and  nursery. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fox  are  among 
the  thriftiest  folks  I  know. 
They  not  only  provide  for  to- 
day, but  for  to-morrow  and 
the  day  after.  For  example, 
when  Mr.  Fox  visits  a  poultry- 
yard,  he  doesn't  simply  carry 
off  enough  for  one  meal.  He 
keeps  catching  and  carrying 
off  chickens,  ducks,  or  geese — 
whatever  comes  handy — all 
night;  working  clear  up  to 
daybreak.  And  the  fresh  meat 
he  thus  gets  for  the  family 

table  he  buries — each  fowl  in  a  separate  place — not  so  very 
far  away  from  the  poultry-yard.  Then  later  he  comes  and 
gets  this  buried  treasure  and  takes  it  home  to  be  shared 
with  mother  and  the  babies. 

Of  these  babies  there  are  from  three  to  five.  Young 
foxes  are  very  playful  and  think  there's  no  such  sport  as 
chasing  each  other  about  in  the  sunshine,  while  mother 
sits  in  the  doorway  keeping  an  eye  out  for  possible  danger 
and  watching  their  antics  with  a  complacent  smile,  as  much 
as  to  say:  "Aren't  they  the  little  dears!" 


POCKETS  OF  THE  POCKET- 
MOUSE 


FARMERS   WITH   FOUR  FEET 

If  just  one  little  fox  wants  to  play  while  his  brothers 
and  sisters  want  to  sleep — and  that  sometimes  happens — 
he  goes  off  by  himself  and  chases  his  own  tail  around,  just 
like  a  kitten. 

Little  foxes  are  very  nice  and  polite  that  way. 


THE  KANGAROO  RAT  AND  THE  POCKET-MOUSE 

The  kangaroo  rat  and  the  pocket -mouse  live  in  the  arid  regions  of  the  United  States.  Both 
have  pockets  in  their  cheeks,  but  the  mouse  is  named  for  his  pockets  and  the  rat  for  his  long 
kangaroo  hind  legs. 


V.    WORK  AND  PLAY  IN  CHIPMUNKVILLE 

It  isn't  often  one  gets  a  chance  to  see  little  foxes  at  play, 
except  occasionally  in  the  big  city  zoos,  for  foxes  are  now 
so  scarce;  and,  besides,  their  papas  and  mammas  in  the 
wild  state  are  suspicious  of  human  spectators,  but  there 


132    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

are  certain  nimble  four-legged  babies  to  be  found  all  over 
the  country  that  play  in  much  the  same  way. 

If,  along  in  July,  you  should  see  a  certain  little  body  in 
a  lovely  striped  suit  chasing  another  little  body  in  a 
striped  suit,  exactly  like  it,  along  the  old  rail  fence  or 
over  the  boulder  wall  or  across  the  meadow,  ten  to  one, 
it  will  be  two  baby  chipmunks  playing  tag.  When  one 
bites  the  other's  tail — they're  always  trying  to  do  that  in 
these  tag  games — it  means  he's  "it,"  I  think.  In  fact,  I'm 
quite  sure,  for  always,  when  one  little  Mr.  Chipmunk  bites 
another  little  Mr.  Chipmunk  on  the  tail,  little  Mr.  Chip- 
munk No.  2  turns  right  around  and  chases  little  Mr.  Chip- 
munk No.  i,  and  tries  to  bite  his  tail. 

They  keep  this  up  on  sunshiny  days  all  through  July  and 
along  into  early  August.  Then  the  serious  business  of  life 
begins.  They  sober  down,  these  chipmunk  children — they 
were  only  born  last  May — and  learn  to  make  homes  for 
themselves.  You  never  would  think  the  way  they  love 
the  sunshine  that  the  homes  of  all  the  chipmunks  are  under 
the  ground,  and  as  dark  as  can  be.  But  they  are.  You 
notice  the  chipmunks  have  rather  large  feet,  considering 
what  dainty  little  creatures  they  are.  These  feet,  like  the 
feet  of  the  mole,  are  for  digging.  The  chipmunk  digs  deep 
under  the  roots  of  trees  and  stone  walls,  if  there  happens 
to  be  either  handy  by,  but,  so  far  as  I've  seen,  he's  quite 
contented  to  make  his  burrows  in  the  open  meadows.  The 
round  nest  at  the  end  of  the  burrow  is  lined  with  fine  grass. 
It  has  two  entrances,  one  right  opposite  the  other,  like 
front  and  back  doors.  Sometimes  there  are  as  many  as 
three  doors;  four,  maybe,  in  case  of  a  chipmunk  of  a  par- 
ticularly nervous  disposition.  All  chipmunks  are  easily 


FARMERS   WITH  FOUR  FEET  133 

frightened  and  dive  into  their  holes,  quick  as  a  wink,  when 
there's  any  danger;  and  often  when  there's  really  nothing 
to  be  scared  at  at  all. 

WHEN    THOSE   EXTRA   DOORS   COME   HANDY 

But  you  can't  blame  them.  There  are  tunes  when  it's 
no  fun  being  a  chipmunk,  I  tell  you.  The  hawks  get  after 
you,  and  the  minks  and  the  foxes  and  the  weasels.  Those 
extra  doors  into  the  nest  are  very  useful  places  to  dodge 
into  when  you're  outside  and  a  savage  old  hawk  swoops 
down  on  you,  or  a  fox  makes  a  jump  at  you.  And  they're 
just  as  handy — these  extra  doors — to  run  out  of  when  a 
mink  or  a  weasel  follows  you  in.  They'll  do  that,  if  you're 
a  chipmunk;  chase  you  right  into  your  own  house ! 

When  a  pair  of  grown-up  chipmunks  start  housekeeping 
for  themselves — that  is  to  say  when  they  are  about  ten 
weeks  old — they  first  dig  a  little  tunnel,  almost  straight 
down  for  several  feet.  Then  they  make  a  hall  that  runs 
along  horizontally — like  anybody's  hall — for  a  few  yards. 
Then,  supposing  you're  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Chipmunk  in  your 
new  place,  after  it's  all  done — you  go  up  a  slant — a  flight 
of  stairs,  you  might  say,  although,  of  course,  there  aren't 
any  stairs — and  there  you  are  in  the  family  bedroom,  the 
nest. 

Not  long  after  the  chipmunks  stop  then-  outdoor  games 
in  the  Fall  you  might  think  it  was  because  they  had  the 
mumps;  they  go  around  with  their  faces  all  swelled  out  in 
such  a  funny  way.  The  reason  is  they  have  their  cheeks 
full  of  nuts  and  seeds  that  they  are  storing  for  the  Winter. 
They  don't  put  these  stores  in  the  nest — for  then  where 
would  they  sleep,  the  nest  is  so  small — but  in  special  cellars 


134    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

that  they  build  near  the  nest,  with  connecting  passages. 
These  cellars,  like  the  nests,  are  well  below  frost-line,  so 
that  Jack  can't  get  the  nuts  or  nip  the  noses  of  the  chip- 
munks while  they  are  asleep. 

When  Winter  finally  sets  in,  the  chipmunks  get  very 
drowsy  and  go  up  to  bed.     And  there  they  stay  until 


PICTURESQUE  HOME  OF  A  CONNECTICUT  WOODCHUCK 

This  is  the  truly  artistic  residence  of  a  Connecticut  woodchuck  which  I  found  in  a  rocky 
knoll  by  the  wayside  during  a  summer  vacation  at  Kent  and  reproduced  as  well  as  I  could 
with  my  fountain-pen.  Mr.  W.  as  he  often  does  in  digging  his  burrows,  had  availed  him- 
self of  the  protection  of  the  roots  of  a  tree.  Here  there  were  two  projecting  roots,  forming  a 
curious  arch  over  the  doorway,  which  was  tastily  decorated  by  a  little  overhanging  vine,  on 
its  way  up  the  knoll,  along  the  stones,  and  up  the  foot  of  the  tree. 


Spring — one  great  long  nap,  except  that  they  wake  up  and 
stir  around  occasionally  on  bright  days  and  if  it  happens 
to  warm  up  a  little. 

'  'Such  sleepyheads !"  you  say.  "And  what  about  all  those 
nuts?  I  should  think  they'd  be  fine  for  Winter  parties." 

They  would,  I  dare  say.  But  you  know  a  body  doesn't 
have  much  of  an  appetite  when  he  doesn't  get  any  outdoor 
exercise,  and  that's  why  the  chipmunks  only  take  a  few 
bites  now  and  then,  during  the  Winter.  And,  besides,  if 
they  ate  up  everything  in  the  Winter — you  know  how  folks 


FARMERS   WITH  FOUR  FEET  135 

eat  at  parties — what  would  they  do  in  the  Spring,  with  no 
good  nuts  lying  around  on  the  ground,  as  there  are  in  the 
Fall;  and  nothing  else  to  be  had  that  chipmunks  care 
about?  So  they  keep  most  of  the  nuts  and  seeds  and 
things  for  the  great  Spring  breakfast,  and  all  the  other 
meals,  until  berries  are  ripe.  The  berries  they  eat  until 
the  next  nut  harvest  comes  along. 

Until  then,  you  see,  they  haven't  much  of  anything  to 
do  but  play  around  and  sit  in  the  sun  and  chat.  So  why 
shouldn't  they? 

HIDE  AND   SEEK  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

You  will  find  some  most  readable  things  about  foxes  in  Burrough's 
"Squirrels  and  Other  Fur  Bearers";  Comstock's  "Pet  Book"; 
Cram's  "Little  Beasts  of  Field  and  Wood";  Wright's  "Four- 
Footed  Americans";  Jordan's  "Five  Tales  of  Birds  and  Beasts"; 
Long's  "Ways  of  Wood  Folk";  and  Seton's  "Wild  Animals  I  Have 
Known." 

Comstock's  "Pet  Book"  also  tells  about  the  prairie-dog;  and 
Seton,  in  his  "Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known,"  tells  about  "The 
Prairie  Dog  and  His  Kin." 

It's  a  very  common  superstition  among  English  country  folk  that 
shrews  always  drop  dead  if  they  attempt  to  cross  a  road.  How  do 
you  suppose  such  a  strange  idea  ever  got  started?  Allen,  in  his 
"Nature's  Work  Shop,"  reasons  it  out,  and  his  reasons  seem  very 
plausible.  It's  a  fact  that  their  dead  bodies  are  nearly  always 
found  in  roadways.  You'll  also  find  some  interesting  information 
about  shrews  in  Johonnott's  "  Curious  Flyers,  Creepers  and  Swim- 
mers" and  Wright's  "Four-Footed  Americans." 

There's  some  little  dispute  about  squirrels  as  tree-planters;  that 
is  to  say  as  to  just  how  they  do  it,  for  there's  no  question  that  they 
do  plant  oaks  and  other  trees.  Thoreau,  in  his  "  Walden,"  gives  the 
squirrel  credit  for  doing  an  immense  amount  of  tree-planting,  but 
Ernest  Ingersoll,  in  his  article  on  squirrels  in  "Wild  Neighbors," 
thinks  the  squirrel  leaves  comparatively  few  acorns  or  hickory-nuts, 
and  that  he  doesn't  forget  where  he  puts  them,  as  other  writers 


136    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

on  nature  say.  "They  seem  to  know  precisely  the  spot,"  says  Mr. 
Ingersoll,  "where  each  nut  is  buried,  and  go  directly  to  it;  and  I 
have  seen  them  hundreds  of  times  when  the  snow  was  more  than  a 
foot  deep,  wade  floundering  through  it  straight  to  a  certain  point, 
dive  down,  perhaps  far  out  of  sight,  and  in  a  moment  emerge  with 
a  nut  in  their  jaws." 

But  how  the  squirrel  knows  it's  there — that's  the  mystery  !  Read 
what  Ingersoll  says  about  it.  The  whole  essay  is  extremely  good 
reading,  and  will  tell  you  a  number  of  things  to  watch  out  for  in 
squirrels  that  you  perhaps  never  have  noticed. 

In  Pliny's  "Natural  History"  you  will  find,  among  other  quaint 
stories,  one  to  the  effect  that  mountain  marmots  put  away  jiay  in 
the  fall  by  one  animal  using  itself  as  a  hay-rack — lying  on  his  back 
with  his  load  clasped  close  while  he  is  pulled  home  by  the  tail. 
"Animal  Arts  and  Crafts"  tells  what  a  simple  little  thing  originated 
this  idea.  Many  of  the  peasants  of  the  Alps  still  believe  it. 

Hornaday,  in  his  "Two  Years  in  the  Jungle,"  gives  an  interest- 
ing account  of  how  one  of  the  four-footed  knights  in  armor — the 
pangolin — does  himself  up  in  a  ball,  and  how  next  to  impossible 
it  is  to  "unlock"  him. 

Ingersoll,  in  discussing  the  various  uses  of  tails  in  "Wild  Neigh- 
bors," tells  how  a  gerboa  kangaroo  brings  home  grass  for  his  nest, 
done  up  in  a  sheaf  of  which  his  own  little  tail  is  the  binder. 

An  interesting  four-footed  burrower,  when  he  can't  rob  a  prairie- 
dog  of  his  hole — or  some  other  body  smaller  than  himself — is  the 
coyote.  There  is  a  long  talk  on  the  coyote  and  his  ways  in  "Wild 
Neighbors."  This  little  book  also  gives  pictures  of  the  different 
kinds  of  shrews  in  the  United  States,  and  a  lot  of  detail  about  them 
and  their  little  paws  and  their  noses  and  their  tails. 

It's  a  queer  thing  how  systematic  and  prompt  shrews  and  moles 
are  in  business.  You  can  actually  set  your  watch  by  them,  as 
you  will  see  in  the  same  book. 

In  the  article  on  the  gopher  in  the  "Americana"  you  will  find 
how  the  gopher  got  his  name.  Can  you  guess,  when  I  tell  you  it's 
from  a  French  word  meaning  "  honeycomb  "  ? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

(AUGUST) 

'Till  he  came  unto  a  streamlet 

In  the  middle  of  the  forest 

To  a  streamlet  still  and  tranquil 

That  had  overflowed  its  margin, 

To  a  dam  made  by  the  beavers, 

To  a  pond  of  quiet  water, 

Where  knee-deep  the  trees  were  standing, 

Where  the  water-lilies  floated, 

Where  the  rushes  waved  and  whispered. 

— Longfellow :  ' '  Hiawatha . ' ' 

WATER   FARMERS  WHO   HELP   MAKE  LAND 

As  we  all  spend  more  or  less  time  in  the  water  in  August 
I  thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  take  as  the  subject 
of  this  chapter  the  lives  of  the  water  farmers.  Some  of 
these — the  crayfish  and  the  turtle,  for  example — you  know 
well,  and  everybody  has  heard  of  the  beaver  family,  but 
they  will  all  bear  closer  acquaintance.  I  know,  for  I've 
spent  a  good  deal  of  time  among  them. 

I.    THE  TURTLE  PEOPLE 

Every  boy  who  has  tramped  along  creeks  and  ponds 
knows  the  mud-turtle.  We  ought  to  call  him  a  tortoise, 
perhaps,  but  the  name  turtle  is  more  common.  I  don't 
know  why;  perhaps  because  it's  a  little  easier  to  say. 
Strictly  speaking,  the  name  " turtle"  is  applied  to  the 
members  of  the  family  that  have  flippers,  and  spend  nearly 

137 


138    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

all  their  time  in  the  water;  while  the  tortoises  are  the  ones 
that  have  feet  and  put  in  much  of  their  time  on  land. 
(And  then,  of  course,  there  are  the  tortoises  of  fables  that 
run  races  with  hares,  and  so  teach  us  not  to  be  too  con- 
fident of  ourselves  because  we  think  we  are  cleverer  than 
some  other  people.) 

The  common  box- turtle  of  the  United  States  you'll  meet 
in  the  woods  in  the  evening  and  early  morning,  wandering 
about  looking  for  something  to  eat.  He  spends  practically 
all  his  time  on  land  in  Summer;  and  in  the  Winter,  all  his 
time  in  bed.  As  soon  as  cold  weather  comes  on  he  digs  a 
hole  in  the  ground,  or  scoops  out  a  place  under  some 
brush,  and  turns  in. 

But  the  box-turtle — he's  really  a  tortoise — is  what  some 
of  his  relatives  would  call  a  "landlubber,"  no  doubt,  for 
many  of  the  tortoises  who  live  in  the  sea  rarely  leave  it; 
as  if  they  had  half  a  mind  to  go  back  and  be  only  flipper 
people,  as  the  ancestors  of  both  the  turtles  and  the  tor- 
toises must  have  been;  since  all  life  is  supposed  to  have 
begun  in  the  sea. 

All  the  tortoises  of  temperate  regions  dig  in  for  the 
Winter,  but  one  Southern  member  of  the  family  makes  his 
home  in  a  dugout  throughout  the  year.  He's  called  the 
"gopher"  turtle.  The  gopher  "turtles  are  natives  of 
Florida,  and  live  in  pairs  in  burrows.  Other  members 
of  the  turtle  tribe  do  not  pair,  but  there's  one  time  in 
their  lives  when  both  land  and  water  turtles  dig  into  the 
soil  and  that's  when  they  are  laying  their  eggs.  The 
females  scoop  out  hollows  with  their  hind  legs,  kicking  up 
the  dirt,  first  with  one  leg  and  then  with  the  other.  But 
they're  as  careful  of  the  dirt  they  dig  out  as  a  beaver  is 


WATER  FARMERS  WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     139 

when  he  digs  a  canal.     They  scrape  it  up  in  a  little  ridge 
all  around  the  hole. 

What  for?     Just  watch. 

HOW   MOTHER   TURTLE   "  TAMPS "   HER  NEST 

As  soon  as  she  has  finished  laying  her  eggs,  Mother  Tur- 
tle carefully  scrapes  this  dirt  back  over  them  and  tamps 


A  HAWKSBILL  TURTLE 

it  down,  much  as  a  foundryman  tamps  the  sand  in  a  mould. 
You  can  guess  what  she  uses  for  a  tamper — the  under  side 
of  her  shell,  raising  and  lowering  herself  on  her  legs  like  a 
Boy  Scout  taking  his  morning  setting-up  exercises  in  a 
Summer  camp.  After  that  she  doesn't  pay  any  more  at- 
tention to  her  eggs.  She  leaves  the  sun  to  do  her  hatch- 
ing for  her.  Both  land  and  sea  turtles — or,  more  properly 


140    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

speaking,  the  tortoises  and  the  turtles — hatch  their  young 
in  this  way.  The  sea-turtles  scramble  up  out  of  the  water 
on  their  flippers,  much  as  a  seal  does  in  climbing  on  a 
rock,  and  make  their  way  back  from  the  shore,  great 
crowds  of  them,  at  nesting-time,  to  some  stretch  of  sand, 
and  there  lay  their  eggs.  This  march  of  the  mother  tur- 
tles always  takes  place  at  night.  When  the  young  are 
hatched  they  dig  their  way  up  through  the  sand  and  make 
for  the  sea. 

II.    THE  CRAB  FAMILY 

Another  one  of  the  water  people  who  help  make  land 
and  one  that  everybody  knows,  is  the  crayfish.  Every 
small  boy  is  afraid  Mr.  Crayfish  will  catch  his  little  big 
toe  sooner  or  later,  when  he  goes  swimming;  although  I 
never  heard  of  a  crayfish  that  did.  But  they  never  worry 
about  their  toes — the  crayfish  don't.  When  they  lose  a 
whole  foot  even — as  they  often  do — it  grows  right  out 
again.  The  science  people  say  this  is  because  they  belong 
to  a  low  order  in  the  animal  world,  but  I  think  it  would 
come  in  right  handy  for  any  of  us— this  way  of  regrowing 
not  toe-nails  alone,  but  toes  and  all — don't  you? 

The  crayfish,  as  you  may  know,  love  to  burrow  in  the 
mud,  for  you  are  always  coming  across  their  little  mud 
towers  along  the  margins  of  the  brooks.  Related  to  the 
crayfish  are  the  crabs.  Mother  Nature  seems  to  have 
been  very  fond  of  crabs — she  has  made  them  after  so  many 
different  patterns  and  scattered  them  all  over  the  world; 
in  the  deep  sea,  along  the  shallows  of  its  shores,  and  on 
land.  Those  you  are  most  apt  to  meet  must  have  more  or 
less  business  on  land,  for  the  shape  of  their  legs  shows  that 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     141 


SOUTH  SEA  ISLAND  AND  COCOANUT  COLUMBUS 

Here  we  are  on  an  island  of  the  Southern  Seas — the  home  of  a  colony  of  cocoanut  crabs. 
One  of  the  members  of  the  colony  is  climbing  a  tree  to  get  a  nut.  ''And  who  has  a  better 
right?"  says  he.  "This  tree,"  he  might  continue,  "is  the  descendant  of  a  nut  that  some  of 
my  ancestors  sailed  upon  to  this  island;  for  a  cocoanut,  dropping  into  the  water  from  a  tree 
near  some  far  shore,  often  carries  on  it  the  crab  who  had  started  to  eat  it.  Then  a  current 
of  the  sea  carries  the  nut  and  its  passenger  to  some  other  island.  Later  cocoanut  Santa 
Marias  and  their  Columbuses  reach  the  island  in  the  same  way,  and  so  it  becomes  populated 
with  both  cocoanuts  and  crabs — which  makes  it  very  nice  for  the  crabs!" 


142     THE  ADVENTURES   6F  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

they  are  formedfor  walking  rather  than  swimming.  But  go 
far  out  to  sea  and  you'll  find  crabs  with  paddles  on  all  four 
pairs  of  legs,  like  banks  of  oars;  while  others,  living  on  the 
borders  of  the  sea,  have  paddles  only  on  the  last  pair. 

One  of  the  big  families  of  crabs  live  on  land  most  of  the 
time  and  make  burrows  in  which  they  live.  These  have 
legs  specially  fitted  for  digging.  Like  most  of  the  crab 
family,  the  land-crab  earns  its  living  at  night  and,  except 
in  rainy  weather,  seldom  leaves  its  burrow  by  day.  Like 
small  boys,  these  crabs  seem  to  love  to  play  in  the  rain. 
The  fact  is  they  do  this  to  keep  their  gills  wet;  for,  although 
they  spend  most  of  their  time  on  land,  crabs  breathe  with 
their  gills,  like  fish;  and  while  some  of  them — as  the  moun- 
tain crab  of  the  West  Indies — live  quite  a  distance  back 
from  the  sea,  they  must  have  some  moisture  for  their 
gills,  and  this  they  get,  in  part,  in  their  damp  cellars — 
the  burrows. 

But  it's  queer,  isn't  it,  what  different  ways  people  have 
of  looking  at  things?  Take  land  crabs  and  turtles,  for 
example.  Turtles,  when  they  lay  their  eggs,  think  the  only 
thing  is  to  get  clear  away  from  the  water  and  put  their 
eggs  in  an  incubator,  as  we  saw  them  do  a  few  pages  back. 
The  land-crabs  evidently  think  just  the  opposite;  for  no 
matter  how  far  they  may  live  away  from  the  sea — one, 
two,  even  three  miles  sometimes — nothing  will  do  but  they 
must  go  to  the  water  to  lay  their  eggs.  In  April  and  May 
you'll  see  them  swarming  down  by  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands. And  they'll  climb  right  over  you  if  you  don't  get 
out  of  their  way ! 

"This  is  my  busy  day  and  I  can't  stop  for  anything," 
says  Mrs.  Crab. 

Besides  the  work  they  do  for  the  soil  in  grinding  and 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     143 

mixing  it,  the  crab  people,  like  all  the  crustaceans,  help  a 
lot  by  adding  lime  to  it,  and  that's  one  of  the  very  best 
things  you  can  do  to  soil,  you  know.  They  add  this  lime 
when  they  change  their  clothes;  that  is,  when  they  moult 
or  cast  their  shells.  The  shell  they  take  off  as  if  it  were 
indeed  a  dress.  They  "unbutton"  it  down  the  back. 
Sometimes,  in  trying  to  get  out  of  the  legs  of  the  suit,  they 
leave  not  only  the  leg  covering  but  the  leg  itself.  That 
leg  is  good  for  the  soil,,  too,  of  course,  and  the  loss  of  a  leg 
doesn't  bother  a  crab  so  very  much.  He  just  grows  a  new 
one,  that's  all ! 

These  shells — particularly  the  shells  of  the  largest  species 
of  crabs — not  only  contain  a  great  deal  of  lime  but  carbon 
and  phosphorus,  also,  and  these  are  splendid  soil  stuff, 
too.  In  the  smaller  kinds  of  crabs — of  crustaceans,  gen- 
erally— these  shells  are  mostly  chitin,  the  stuff  that  the 
coverings  of  insects  is  made  of. 

The  crustaceans,  by  the  way,  are  closely  related  to  the 
insects.  You  may  suspect  this  by  comparing  their  shapes, 
but  then  you'll  see  there  isn't  any  doubt  about  it  when 
I  tell  you  that  in  getting  born  from  the  egg,  the  crabs  and 
their  kin  don't  come  out  dressed  in  their  final  shape,  but 
change  after  they  are  born,  first  into  one  shape  and  then 
into  another,  just  as  insects  do.  Each  shape,  as  it  comes 
along,  looks  funnier  than  the  rest;  that  is,  it  looks  funny 
to  us,  but  not,  naturally,  to  the  crabs.  It  must  seem  just 
the  thing  to  them,  for  they  always  dress  the  same  way  and 
look  as  solemn  about  it  as  a  man  does  when  he  wears  a 
monocle.  In  fact,  they  do  something  almost  as  funny  as 
wearing  a  monocle.  For  many  of  them  carry  their  eyes 
about,  not  on  the  end  of  a  cord,  to  be  sure,  but  on  the  end 
of  a  stick.  These  "sticks"  are  called  foot  stalks.  And 


144    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 


THE  ANIMAL  X  FROM  THE  ANTIPODES 

A  mole's  body,  a  duck's  bill,  a  beaver's  tail,  this  strange  citizen  of  that  land  of  strange 
animals,  Australia,  lays  eggs  like  a  bird  and  suckles  its  young  like  a  pussy-cat !  Do  you 
wonder  that  the  wise  men  of  London  laughed  at  the  idea  that  there  is  any  such  creature — 
even  when  they  were  looking  right  at  one? 


they're  not  a  bad  idea  either — for  a  crab.  By  moving  them 
around  the  crabs  can  keep  much  better  posted  on  what  is 
going  on  about  them  than  they  could  otherwise;  partic- 
ularly as  a  crab  always  moves  sidewise  or  backward.  What 
good  a  monocle  does,  though,  nobody  knows. 

III.    THE  STRANGER  THAT  MADE  LONDON  LAUGH 

But  if  we  can  hardly  look  a  crab  in  the  eye  and  keep  a 
straight  face,  what  would  we  do  if  we  met  a  duck-billed 
mole?  We'd  laugh  right  out!  I'm  sure  of  it,  for  that's 
what  even  the  men  of  science  did  when  they  saw  the  first 
one  that  came  to  England.  This  strange  foreigner — it 
came  to  London  all  the  way  from  Australia — had  a  body 


WATER   FARMERS   WHO  HELP   MAKE   LAND     145 

like  a  mole.  But  you  couldn't  call  it  a  mole.  For  one  thing, 
it  had  a  bill  like  a  duck.  Yet  no  more  could  you  call  it  a 
duck;  for.  besides  having  a  body  like  a  mole,  it  had  a  tail 
like  a  beaver.  Still  I'm  afraid  the  beavers  wouldn't  have 
owned  it — hospitable  as  they  are — even  if  they  could  have 


COUSIN  ECHIDNA 

The  echidna — you  can  see  one  in  the  New  York  Zoo — is  closely  related  to  our  duck-billed 
friend  and  is  also  a  native  of  Australia.  It  uses  that  long,  tapering  nose  and  those  claws  to 
burrow  for  the  ants  on  which  it  lives. 


overlooked  that  bill.    For — can  you  believe  it  ? — this  duck- 
billed, mole-bodied,  beaver-tailed  creature  lays  eggs! 

Yet  the  ducks  just  couldn't  take  it  into  their  families 
either,  for  what  else  do  you  think  it  does?  It  suckles  its 
young,  like  a  pussy-cat!  Talk  about  your  sensations;  it 
made  the  hit  of  the  season — this  Animal  X  from  the  An- 
tipodes. The  learned  men  of  London  town,  they  looked 


146    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

him  up  and  they  looked  him  down,  and  they  came  to  the 
same  conclusion,  at  first,  that  the  old  gentleman  did  when 
he  saw  the  dromedary.  They  said:  "They  ain't  no  such 
animal!"  (Only,  of  course,  being  learned  men,  they  used 
good  grammar.) 

They  really  did  say  that  in  effect,  and  you  can't  blame 
them;  for,  as  if  to  complete  the  joke,  the  first  member  of 
the  duck-billed  mole  family  to  move  in  scientific  society 
came  in  like  a  Christmas  turkey;  in  other  words,  he  was  a 
stuffed  specimen.  So  the  men  of  science  said  he  wasn't 
real  at  all;  that  he  was  just  made  up  of  the  parts  of  other 
animals.  But  being  true  men  of  science,  after  all,  they 
finally  began  looking  up  the  stranger's  record  among  his 
neighbors  back  in  Australia,  and  they  found  there  actually 
are  living  creatures  in  that  land  of  strange  creatures,  just 
like  that  specimen,  and  that  they  live  in  burrows  which 
they  dig  in  the  banks  of  the  streams. 

Still  the  scientists  didn't  know  what  to  call  this  para- 
dox of  the  animal  kingdom;  so  they  named  him  just  that 
— paradoxicus,  Ornythoryncus  paradoxicus.  A  little  Greek 
boy,  without  having  to  look  it  up  in  a  dictionary,  would 
have  told  us  that  " orny thoryncus "  means  "bird-billed"; 
for  it's  like  those  Greek  picture  words  that  always  told 
their  own  story  to  the  little  Greeks.  As  for  "paradox" 
if  you  don't  know  what  that  means,  look  it  up  in  the  dic- 
tionary and  then  look  at  the  Ornythoryncus  paradoxicus, 
and  you'll  understand. 

IV.    THE  BEAVERS 

Of  course  you  wouldn't  like  to  be  a  duck-billed  mole — 
nobody  would,  but  I  always  thought  it  would  be  rather 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP   MAKE  LAND     147 


148    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

nice  to  be  a  beaver.  The  beaver  is,  in  many  ways,  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  the  water  people  that  help  make 
the  lands  that  give  us  bread. 

But  it  is  not  alone  for  the  amount  of  work  he  does  that 
I  admire  Mr.  Beaver  so  much;  it  is  for  his  intelligent,  not 
to  say  brilliant,  way  of  doing  it.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
you  had  to  build  a  house  out  in  the  water,  the  way  our 
great,  great-grandparents,  the  lake-dwellers,  did,  to  protect 
yourself  from  enemies  and  for  other  reasons.  And  then  sup- 
pose you  didn't  have  any  tools;  nothing  but  a  pair  of 
paws  and  a  set  of  teeth.  Could  you  do  it? 

Another  thing:  The  lake-dwellers  had  plenty  of  water 
to  build  in;  plenty,  but  not  too  much.  The  beavers  don't 
have  this  advantage.  They  usually  build  in  the  water  of 
flowing  streams,  and  they  have  to  make  their  own  lakes. 
How  would  you  do  it;  even  if  you  had  tools?  But  re- 
member, being  a  beaver,  you've  got  nothing  to  use  but 
two  honest  paws  and  a  set  of  teeth.  It  was  with  these  Mr. 
Beaver  did  it  all — with  his  teeth,  his  paws,  and  his  head; 
the  inside  of  his  head,  I  mean — his  brain.  Take  the  matter 
of  water  arrangements.  He  gets  the  water  to  lie  quietly 
and  at  just  the  right  depth  by  building  his  dam  across  the 
stream.  This  dam  not  only  provides  him  with  water  of 
just  the  right  depth  to  protect  his  front  door  from  enemies 
and  to  keep  rushing  torrents  from  carrying  his  house  away, 
but  the  spreading  out  of  the  original  stream  bed  into  a 
pond  helps  in  gathering  the  Fall  harvest  of  trees,  since  it 
brings  the  trees  nearer  to  the  water's  edge,  and  water 
transportation  among  beavers,  as  among  men,  is  always 
cheapest. 

Although    dams    are  usually  built  of   trees  which  the 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     149 

beavers  cut  down  themselves,  they  also  use  cobblestones 
where  trees  are  scarce;  for  Mr.  Beaver  is  a  very  thrifty 
soul;  he  doesn't  waste  material  nor  time  nor  effort.  Many 
books  about  beavers  say  they  cut  the  trees  so  they  will 


BEAVERS  AT  WORK  ON  A  DAM 

See  how  many  of  the  features  of  the  building  of  a  beaver  dam,  as  described  in  our  story 
of  these  wise  little  people, 'you  can  make  out  in  this  picture. 


fall  across  the  stream,  but  Mills  says,  in  his  book  on  the 
beaver,  written  after  many  years  of  patient  observation, 
that  beavers  don't  seem  to  care  how  the  tree  falls,  just  so 
it  doesn't  fall  on  them!  Not  but  what  they  could  cut  trees 
to  fall  in  the  water  if  they  thought  best;  for  just  watch 
them  build  a  dam  and  see  how  clever  they  are;  cleverer, 
possibly,  than  some  of  us. 

Let's  see.  Say  you've  got  your  trees  up  to  where  the 
dam  is  to  be;  now  how  are  you  going  to  set  them  in  build- 
ing the  dam  ? 


150    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

SEE   IF   YOU'RE   AS    CLEVER   AS   MR.    BEAVER 

"Right  across  the  dam,"  you  would  say,  wouldn't  you? 
That  is  what  most  people  have  said  when  I  have  asked 
them  that  question;  for  that  is  the  way  men  do  it.  But 
remember,  if  you  built  the  dam  as  men  build  dams  you 
would  have  to  drive  stakes  or  do  something  to  keep  the 
logs  from  washing  away.  Years  ago,  when  writers  used 
to  theorize  a  great  deal  on  how  things  were  done,  instead 
of  getting  outdoors  and  watching  patiently  to  see  how  they 
actually  were  done,  it  was  said  that  Mr.  Beaver  in  build- 
ing his  dam  did  really  drive  stakes  and  that  he  did  it  with 
that  big  tail  of  his.  But  what  Mr.  Mills  found  was  that 
the  beaver  lays  his  trees  lengthwise  of  the  stream.  You 
see  why  that  is,  don't  you  ?  When  the  trees  are  laid  length- 
wise, the  water,  instead  of  striking  them  broadside,  strikes 
only  the  end  and  so  there  is  less  likelihood  of  their  being 
carried  away. 

Another  thing,  two  things,  about  the  trees  in  the  dam- 
in  fact  four: 

1.  It  wouldn't  do,  you  see,  to  lay  the  trees  broadside 
to  the  stream,  but  what  position  could  we  give  them  that 
would  help  still  further  in  keeping  the  water  from  carry- 
ing them  away? 

2.  Shall  we  use  trees  with  the  branches  still  on  them  or 
trees  trimmed  down  like   sticks   of  cord- wood?     (What 
kind  do  you  see  in  the  picture  of  the  beaver  dam  ?) 

3.  Or  shall  we  use  both  trimmed  and  untrimmed  trees? 
If  so,  why?    And  how? 

4.  If  we  use  untrimmed  trees,  which  end  shall  we  put 
up-stream?    The  butt  or  the  tip? 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP   MAKE  LAND     151 

In,  building  his  dam  the  beaver  uses,  for  the  most  part, 
slender  green  poles  trimmed  and  cut  in  lengths;  but  mixed 
with  these  are  small  untrimmed  trees  which  he  places  with 
the  butt  end  up-stream,  and  propped  with  mud  and  sticks 
so  that  the  up  end  will  be  a  foot  or  so  higher  than  the  down 
end.  In  this  w.ay,  you  see,  the  branches  are  made  to  resist 
the  push  of  the  waters  against  the  butt  end;  while,  if  they 
were  placed  the  other  way,  the  current  would  have  a  pulling 
purchase  on  the  butt  end.  The  raising  of  the  ends  also 


SECTION  OF  A  BEAVER  DAM 

You  can  see  that  there  was  a  sufficient  flow  of  water  in  the  stream  from  which  this  sketch 
of  a  section  of  a  beaver  dam  was  taken;  otherwise  the  dam  would  have  been  plastered  with 
mud  to  conserve  the  supply.  The  longest  slope,  of  course,  was  up-stream — a  fundamental 
principle  in  beaver  bridge  engineering. 


lessens  the  pushing  force  of  the  water  as  it  doesn't  strike 
the  butt  of  the  tree  "full  on,"  as  it  would  otherwise  do. 
And  the  branches  not  only  help  to  hold  the  trees  in  place, 
but,  together,  form  a  kind  of  foundation  on  which  to  pile 
and  intermix  the  trimmed  poles. 

The  timbers,  being  cut  green,  become  water-soaked. 
This  makes  them  heavier  and  so  causes  them  to  sink  and 
helps  to  hold  them  in  place;  while  the  branches  and  twigs 
of  the  untrimmed  trees  form  a  kind  of  basketwork  that 
catches  the  sediment  and  drift  of  the  stream,  and  so  the 
dam  lets  less  and  less  water  through.  The  upside  stream 
is  plastered  by  the  beavers  with  mud  in  cases  where  the 


152    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

flow  of  water  in  the  stream  is  meagre.  Otherwise  it  is  left 
unplastered.  You  see  Mr.  Beaver's  idea  is  not  to  make 
the  dam  absolutely  water-tight,  for  then  it  would  be  run- 


BEAVER  HOME  WITHOUT  TIME  LOCK 
Here  is  a  beaver  home  as  it  looks  before  the  time  lock  is  put  on  in  the  Fall. 


ning  over  all  the  time  and  so  be  worn  away.  What  he 
wants  is  a  dam  that  will  let  the  water  through  slowly  and 
at  the  same  time  keep  a  proper  level. 

Mr.  Beaver's  chief  purpose  in  building  these  dams  seems 


WATER  FARMERS  WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     153 

to  be  to  keep  his  front-door  yard  full  of  water.  This  may 
look  like  a  funny  idea  at  first,  but  in  this,  as  in  other  things, 
Mr.  Beaver  shows  he  has  a  very  wise  head  on  his  shoul- 


A  BEAVER  HOME  WITH  TIME  LOCK' 
Here,  as  it  looks  after  being  made  secure  against  hungry  wolves  and  the  Winter  winds. 

ders;  for  one  peculiarity  of  his  life  is  that  he  is  obliged  to 
come  and  go  through  the  cellar  door.  As  he  doesn't  want 
any  of  his  enemies — the  wolf,  the  coyote,  and  all  that  class 
of  people — to  use  this  door,  he  keeps  it  under  water.  And 


154    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

in  winter-time,  when  he  goes  out  to  the  wood-pile  to  get 
something  to  eat,  the  water  must  be  deep  enough  so  that 
the  pond  doesn't  freeze  solid  to  the  bottom. 

As  for  those  professional  highwaymen,  the  wolves  and 
coyotes,  that  are  so  much  bigger  than  he  is,  Mr.  Beaver 
keeps  out  of  their  way  in  Summer,  when  they  don't  bother 
much  about  him,  anyway,  as  he  sticks  so  close  to  the  water 
and  is  hard  to  catch.  In  the  Winter,  when  they  get  hungry 
and  desperate  and  would  break  into  his  house,  if  they  could, 
he  makes  it  practically  burglar-proof,  by  putting  on  a  time 
lock;  a  lock  that  just  won't  open,  even  to  a  wolf's  sharp 
claws,  until  Spring. 

And  in  the  simplest  way ; 

Just  before  Winter  sets  in  Mr.  Beaver  plasters  the  out- 
side of  his  house  with  mud,  and  the  mud  freezes  as  hard 
as  a  stone.  But  sometimes,  even  among  the  beavers,  there 
are  shiftless  characters,  like  that  Arkansas  man  who  just 
wouldn't  look  after  his  roof.  These  careless  beavers  don't 
plaster  their  roofs.  But  then,  just  see  what  happens !  Some 
hungry  wolf  comes  along  and  breaks  through  and  has  a 
nice  fat  beaver  for  supper,  maybe.  And  maybe  not;  for, 
even  in  that  case,  if  Mr.  Beaver  wakes  up  in  time,  he  dives 
down  through  the  cellar  door  and  into  the  tunnel  and  out 
under  the  ice. 

"Aha!  You  got  fooled  that  time,  didn't  you?  You 
mean  old  thing !"  (Can't  you  almost  hear  him  say  it?) 

In  putting  the  mud  coating  on  their  houses  or  dams 
the  beavers  carry  it  in  their  fore  paws.  Sometimes,  in  a 
very  steep  place,  they  climb  up  the  roof  with  three  feet 
and  hold  the  mud  with  one.  When  they  have  delivered 
the  mud  they  use  these  same  little  paws  to  pat  it  down — 
not  their  trowel-like  tails,  as  one  would  naturally  suppose. 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP   MAKE  LAND     155 

THAT  MYSTERY  ABOUT   THE   BEAVER'S   TAIL 

Then  what  do  they  do  with  those  tails?  Well,  for  one 
thing,  they  sometimes  use  them  to  carry  mud  by  curling 
them  between  their  legs  and  holding  the  mud  against  their 
bodies.  Perhaps  they  resort  to  this  way  of  carrying  mud 
where  they  have  such  a  steep  climb  up  the  roof  they  need 
all  four  legs  to  climb  with;  or  it  may  be  just  an  individual 
fancy  of  some  beavers.  For,  being  really  thinkers  and  not 
mere  machines,  acting  entirely  on  what  is  called  instinct, 
different  beavers  have  different  ways  of  doing  things.  The 
beaver's  tail  is  also  very  useful  in  swimming,  and  Mr. 
Beaver  is  a  great  swimmer.  You  should  see  him.  He 
swims  mostly  with  his  hind  feet  and  tail,  holding  his  fore 
paws  against  his  breast  as  a  squirrel  does  when  he's  sitting 
up  looking  at  you.  His  tail  he  uses  as  one  uses  an  oar  in 
sculling,  turning  it  slightly  on  edge  as  he  works  it  back 
and  forth. 

But  he  has  two  other  important  uses  for  this  big  tail, 
as  we  shall  now  see;  for  the  beavers  of  this  colony  we  are 
watching,  having  put  up  their  dam  and  built  their  big 
house,  are  now  ready  for  the  Fall  harvest  that  is  to  pro- 
vide for  the  long  Winter.  The  beavers  are  strict  vege- 
tarians. Their  diet  consists  of  the  tender  bark  of  young 
trees  and  roots  dug  from  the  bottom  and  along  the  banks 
of  the  ponds  in  which  they  live. 

"But,  for  mercy's  sake,  where  are  they  going  to  get  the 
tender  bark  of  trees  in  the  dead  of  Winter,  when  all  the 
trees  are  frozen  solid  and  the  beavers  can't  get  from  under 
the  ice  anyhow?" 

Well,  Mr.  Beaver  has  thought  out  just  how  to  do  it  and 
we  didn't.  That's  the  beauty  of  being  a  beaver.  What 


156    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

he  does  is  to  cut  down  small  trees,  trim  them,  divide  them 
into  lengths,  and  then  heap  them  up  in  a  great  pile  at  his 
door,  under  the  water. 

By  the  time  they  are  three  years  old  beavers  feel  grown- 
up ;  as,  indeed,  they  are  in  size,  although,  like  certain  other 
young  people  I  could  name,  they  have  a  great  deal  yet  to 
learn.  At  this  age  they  choose  their  mates  and  either  settle 
down  in  the  home  colony  or  go  away  somewhere  else. 

School  takes  up  with  the  beavers  in  September.  All 
through  September  and  October  the  harvest  is  gathered 
and  preparations  made  for  the  long  Winter.  The  baby 
beavers  of  the  Spring,  who  by  this  time  are  four  or  five 
months  old,  take  part  in  the  harvesting;  at  least  they 
play  at  it.  They  don't  do  much,  but  they  learn  a  great 
deal.  Now  let's  all  be  little  beavers  for  a  few  minutes  and 
see  what  we  can  learn.  We  are  out  in  the  harvest-field — 
the  woods — with  father,  and  he's  going  to  cut  down  a  tree 
for  the  Winter  food-pile.  Watch  him. 

He  picks  out  a  young  tree  something  less  than  six  inches 
thick.  Then  he  looks  up  as  if  he  wanted  to  see  what  kind 
of  a  day  it  was  going  to  be;  although  the  fact  is  he  never 
bothers  his  head  about  the  weather.  What  he  is  really 
looking  up  for  is  to  see  if  the  top  of  the  tree  he  is  going  to 
chop  down  is  likely  to  get  tangled  in  the  tops  of  other  trees 
when  it  falls.  (All  beavers,  I  should  add,  don't  take  this 
precaution;  only  the  older  and  wiser  ones.)  After  this 
inspection  he  either  cuts  the  tree  in  two  with  his  long  sharp 
chisel  teeth  so  that  it  will  fall  clear  of  the  tangling  branches 
of  other  trees,  or,  if  he  sees  he  can't  prevent  this,  he  moves 
away  to  another  tree. 

Just  before  the  tree  is  ready  to  fall  he  thumps  the  ground 
several  times  with  his  tail  to  warn  other  beavers  working 


WATER  FARMERS   WHO  HELP   MAKE  LAND 


157 


near  by.  They  all  scamper  as  fast  as  their  fat  bodies  and 
short  legs  will  let  them.  If  they  are  near  water,  as  they 
usually  are — they  "plunk"  into  it.  After  the  tree  falls 
the  limbs  are  cut  off,  the  trunk  gnawed  into  sections  four 
to  six  feet  long,  depending  on  the  size  of  the  trunk,  the 
distance  from  the  water,  and  the  number  of  beavers  that 


SUN  BATH  AFTER  THE  SWIM 

Boys,  after  an  hour  or  so  in  the  "ole  swimmin'  hole,"  like  to  take  a  sun  bath.     That's 
what  these  young  beavers  are  doing  on  a  nice  grassy  spot  by  the  pond. 


are  going  to  help  move  it.  Although,  as  a  rule,  only  one 
beaver  works  on  a  tree  in  cutting  it  down,  they  all  pitch 
in  and  help  in  getting  the  sections  home;  dragging  them 
across  the  ground  and  into  the  pond  or  into  one  of  their 
wonderful  canals. 

THE  BEAVERS  AND  THEIR  PANAMA  CANALS 

The  beavers  knew  all  about  digging  canals  long  before 
the  days  of  Colonel  Goethals.    They  dug  them  for  much 


158    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  same  reason  we  dug  the  great  Panama  Canal,  to  save 
time  and  expense  in  moving  freight  and  for  protection 
from  possible  enemies.  On  land  the  beaver  is  easy  prey 
for  wolves  and  such,  but  once  in  the  water  he  can  laugh 
at  them.  These  canals  not  only  enable  him  to  haul  his 
wood  easily  and  safely,  but  are  just  the  things  to  dive  into 
when  somebody  is  after  you.  Another  purpose  of  the 
canals  is  to  fill  ponds  where  water  is  getting  low;  or  to 
make  a  pond  where  there  isn't  any  at  all,  as  in  a  dry  ravine. 

Whether  you  look  at  them  from  the  standpoint  of  their 
intelligence  and  good  habits,  or  their  usefulness,  beavers 
are  the  most  interesting  of  all  our  little  four-legged  brothers 
of  field  or  wood,  and  it  is  pleasing  to  know  that  many 
States  have  passed  laws  to  protect  them. 

And  besides  he  is  such  a  good  fellow,  Mr.  Beaver  is; 
peaceable,  industrious,  dependable,  and  with  the  best 
heart  in  the  world!  Why,  do  you  know  what  they  do — 
the  beavers — when  neighbors  get  burned  out  by  forest- 
fires  or  their  houses  broken  into  by  a  mean  old  wolf  or 
coyote  or  anything  ?  Take  them  right  in,  children  and  all ! 

If  you  were  a  little  beaver  you'd  have  from  two  to  four 
twin  brothers  and  sisters  to  start  with,  and  then  two  to 
four  more  for  each  of  the  remaining  two  years  before  you 
left  home  to  make  your  own  way  in  the  world.  You'd 
be  born  with  your  eyes  open  and  not  like  a  puppy  or  kitten. 
And,  what  do  you  think,  in  less  than  two  weeks  you  could 
go  swimming.  Mother  would  be  right  with  you  in  case 
anything  happened.  Then  when  you  were  tired  swim- 
ming you'd  climb  up  on  top  of  the  house  and  rest  and  doze 
in  the  sun;  take  your  afternoon  nap  just  like  any  other 
baby. 


WATER  FARMERS  WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     159 


LITTLE  BEAVERS  IN  THEIR  HOME 


But  maybe  it  wouldn't  be  your  own  mamma  that  would 
be  with  you ;  for  lots  of  sad  things  happen  to  beaver  people, 
and  when  one  little  beaver's  mother  dies  another  mother 
beaver  will  take  care  of  him,  and  all  his  brothers  and  sisters 
besides!  Mr.  Mills  tells  in  that  most  interesting  book  of 
his  about  how  one  day  a  mother  beaver  was  killed  by  a 
hunter  who  thought  he  didn't  have  anything  better  to  do 
than  kill  poor  little  beavers;  and  the  very  next  evening  a 
lady  beaver,  who  already  had  four  babies  of  her  own, 
travelled  a  quarter  of  a  mile  with  them  to  the  house  of 
her  dead  neighbor  and  stayed  there  and  brought  all  the 
little  orphans  up ! 


160    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 


HIDE  AND   SEEK  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

The  crayfish  is  a  thing  you've  got  to  take  seriously  if  you  want 
to  get  the  most  out  of  it.  Huxley  says  that  a  thorough  study  of  a 
crayfish  is  almost  a  whole  course  in  zoology.  Think  of  going  to 
school  to  a  crayfish !  But  you'd  enjoy  it,  I'm  sure.  For  just  look 
— and  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  interesting  things  you  will  find 
in  Huxley's  famous  book  on  "The  Crayfish": 

How  they  swim  backward  (no  doubt  you  know  this  already), 
and  how  they  walk  on  the  bottom  of  the  water. 

Why  they  seem  to  know  the  points  of  the  compass — for  they 
prefer  rivers  that  run  north  and  south. 

Why  they  are  most  active  toward  evening. 

Where  they  spend  the  winter. 

Why  they  eat  their  old  clothes. 

How  early  in  the  spring  you  may  expect  to  find  them. 

When  they  hatch  their  eggs  and  how  the  mother  crayfish  uses 
her  tail  for  a  nursery. 

In  what  respect  they  resemble  moths. 

How  they  chew  their  meals  with  their  feet  and  work  their  jaws 
like  a  camel  from  side  to  side — only  more  so ! 

How  they  grow  by  fits  and  starts,  and  what  this  has  to  do  with 
the  way  they  change  their  clothes. 

How  you  can  tell  the  age  of  a  crayfish.  (You  don't  do  it  by 
looking  at  its  teeth.  You  couldn't  see  its  teeth  anyway,  because 
they  are  in  its  stomach.) 

And  all  this  in  less  than  the  first  fifty  pages  of  a  book,  which  has 
more  than  350. 

One  of  the  most  famous  of  the  crab  family,  not  only  on  account 
of  his  part  in  agriculture,  but  because  of  his  funny  ways,  is  the 
robber-crab.  You  should  read  about  the  wild  life  of  adventure 
some  of  these  crabs  lead — regular  Robinson  Crusoes  who  get 
wrecked  on  islands  far  away  from  home  and  build  houses  there  and 
shift  for  themselves  in  many  ingenious  ways,  just  as  the  human 
Robinson  Crusoe  did.  Kingsley's  "Madam  How  and  Lady  Why" 
has  some  interesting  pages  about  them ;  and  so  has  Darwin's  "  Voyage 
Around  the  World." 

Of  the  many  things  that  have  been  written  about  beavers  the 
following  are  among  the  most  interesting:  The  story  of  the  beaver 
in  "Stories  of  Adventure,"  edited  by  Edward  Everett  Hale;  "The 


WATER  FARMERS  WHO  HELP  MAKE  LAND     ifel 

Forest  Engineer,"  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  in  Johonnott's  "Glimpses  of 
the  Animal  World";  "How  the  Beaver  Builds  His  House,"  in  "The 
Animal  Story  Book,"  edited  by  Lang;  "The  Builders,"  in  Lang's 
"Ways  of  Wood  Folks";  and  "The  House  in  the  Water,"  by  Roberts. 

The  most  interesting  book  of  all  on  beavers,  however,  is  "The 
Beaver  World,"  by  Mills,  referred  to  in  this  chapter.  I  have  not 
told  you  one-half  of  the  remarkable  th"*g*  you  will  find  about 
them  in  this  book. 

One  of  the  most  curious  is  about  how  a  beaver  sometimes  gets 
his  breath  in  the  winter  time.  He  may  have  to  travel  quite  a  dis- 
tance under  the  ice,  and  one  good  breath  has  to  last  him  to  the  end 
of  the  journey. 

"But  does  he  hold  his  breath  all  this  time?    How  can  he?" 

He  can't.  He  just  uses  the  same  breath  over  again.  See  how 
he  does  it.  The  Mills  book  tells. 

Look  up  the  muskrat  and  compare  his  ways  with  those  of  the 
beaver. 

In  the  "Country  Life  Reader"  you  will  find  a  graphic  descrip- 
tion of  one  of  the  perils  of  life  for  the  beavers  and  their  cousins  the 
muskrats;  namely  in  attacks  by  the  great  horned  owL 


CITY  LIFE  AMONG  THE  FLAMINGOES 

We  don't  have  to  go  to  Florida  to  get  this  bird's-eye  view  of  a  flamingo  city.  It  is  one 
of  the  habitat  groups  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York,  and  repro- 
duces perfectly  the  architecture  and  the  social  life  of  these  interesting  people. 


CHAPTER  IX 

(SEPTEMBER) 
On  the  housetop,  one  by  one 
Flock  the  synagogue  of  swallows 
Met  to  vote  that  Autumn's  gone. 

— Gautier :  "Life." 

FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS 

Sh !  Go  easy !  Pretend  you're  a  horse  or  a  cow.1  We've 
gone  south  with  the  swallows— it's  September  you  see — 
and  those  queer  birds  over  there  are  flamingoes.  The  fla- 

1  Observers  find  that  flamingoes  can  be  successfully  approached  by 
putting  on  the  skin  of  a  cow  or  a  horse. 

162 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  163 

mingoes  are  a  shy  lot;  I  don't  know  why.  I  can't  think 
it's  on  account  of  their  looks;  for  there's  the  kiwi,  the  horn- 
bill,  and  sakes  alive — the  puffins!  They  all  have  funny 
noses,  too,  but  none  of  them  are  particularly  shy,  and  you 
can  walk  right  up  to  a  Papa  Puffin  almost.  Whatever  the 
reason  is,  the  flamingoes  are  very  easily  frightened  and 
they're  particularly  suspicious  of  human  beings.  Yet 
we've  simply  got  to  meet  them  and  have  them  in  this  chap- 
ter, for  they  are  among  the  most  interesting  of  the  feathered 
workers  of  the  soil.  They  just  live  in  mud;  build  those 
tower-like  nests  out  of  it,  walk  about  in  it,  and  get  their 
meals  by  scooping  up  mud  and  muddy  water  from  the 
marshes  where  they  live,  on  the  borders  of  lakes  and  seas. 
They  strain  out  the  little  creatures  wiggling  about  in  these 
scooped-up  mouthfuls. 

I.    FEATHERED  FARMERS  WITH  QUEER  NOSES 

"What  a  funny  nose!    What  happened  to  it?" 
I  knew  you'd  say  that.     Everybody  does.     But  just 
watch  now  and  see.     That  flamingo  over  there,  stalking 
about  on  his  stilt-like  legs,  sticks  his  long  neck  down  to  the 
muddy  water,  turns  that  funny  nose  upside  down  and — 
"Why,  of  all  things,  is  he  going  to  stand  on  his  head?" 

WHY   FLAMINGOES  HAVE   SUCH  FUNNY  NOSES 

No,  not  that.  Don't  you  see,  he's  getting  his  dinner? 
After  that  crooked  scoop  bill — for  that's  what  it  really  is, 
a  scoop — is  rilled,  the  water  strains  out  through  ridges 
along  the  edge  of  the  bill  and  what's  left  is  his  food. 

That  picture  looks  as  if  it  had  a  tremendous  lot  of  fla- 
mingoes in  it,  doesn't  it?  It  has.  It's  quite  a  town,  Fla- 


1 64    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

mingoburg  is.  Although  flamingoes  are  so  wary  about 
meeting  two-legged  people  without  feathers — that  is,  hu- 
man beings — they're  very  sociable  among  themselves  and 
there  may  be  a  thousand,  even  two  thousand,  pair  in  a 
single  flamingo  city,  such  as  Doctor  Chapman  studied  in 
the  Bahama  Islands  some  years  ago. 

Their  nests  are  cupped-out  hollows  in  little  towers  of 
dried  mud  raised  a  foot  or  so  to  keep  high  tides  from 
swamping  them.  They  scrape  up  the  mud  with  that 
shovel-like  bill.  After  the  conical-tower  nest  is  made,  the 
mud  piled  up  and  patted  into  shape  with  her  bill  and  feet, 
Mother  Flamingo  lays  one  or  two  eggs — and  then  she  goes 
to  setting.  You  notice  there's  just  one  little  chick  in  the 
nest  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner  of  the  picture,  and  just 
one  egg  in  the  nest  near  by. 

With  such  a  low  stool  to  sit  on  you  wonder  what  the 
mother  bird  does  with  her  long  legs.  In  some  pictures  in 
children's  nature  books  of  not  so  many  years  ago  you'll 
find  her  represented  as  sitting  on  the  nest  with  her  legs 
hanging  down  the  sides — but  you  see  that  couldn't  be; 
the  nest  isn't  tall  enough.  What  she  really  does  is  to  fold 
her  legs  under  her  body;  just  once,  of  course,  at  the  joint. 
But  they're  so  long  that,  even  when  folded,  they  reach 
out  beyond  her  tail.  While  setting,  the  lady  birds  reach 
around  with  their  long  necks  shovelling  up  things  to  eat 
and  gossiping,  more  or  less,  with  the  neighbors;  for  the 
nests,  you  notice,  are  very  close  together.  Sometimes  two 
of  them  will  reach  across  the  narrow  alley  that  separates 
the  residence  of  Mrs.  Flamingo  Smith  from  Mrs.  Fla- 
mingo Jones,  take  each  other  playfully  by  the  bill  and 
hold  together  for  a  while.  Maybe  this  is  their  way  of  say- 
ing "Good  morning,"  or  "How  do  you  do?" 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS 


165 


THE  TOILETTE 

You'd  expect  a  lady 
wearing  so  many  nice 
feathers  to  be  particularly 
careful  about  her  dress, 
wouldn't  you? 


^2i '  '$?>$"#>' » 


A  LITTLE  NAP 

Queer  notion,  sleeping  on 
one  leg  like  that,  isn't  it?  But 
then  flamingoes  are  queer ! 


A  TOUCH  OF  RHEUMATISM 

Of  course  flamingoes  don't  go 
around  like  that  even  in  zoos- 
This  is  the  artist's  joking  way  of 
telling  that  in  our  northern  climate 
they  are  subject  to  rheumatism. 
And  the  keepers  actually  do  oil 
their  legs. 


FLAMINGO  SOCIETY  NOTES  FROM  THE  ZOO 


1 66    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

You'd  hardly  think  it — with  those  long  legs  of  theirs — 
but  the  flamingoes  swim  beautifully.  With  their  long  necks 
drawn  back — the  way  swans  do  it,  you  know — they  are 
very  graceful,  and  a  flock  of  them  floating  about  is  one 
of  the  loveliest  sights  in  the  world.  They  look  like  a  big, 
fleecy,  pink  cloud  resting  right  on  the  surface  of  the  water. 
You  can  now  find  only  a  few  flamingoes  in  Florida,  where 
there  used  to  be  so  many;  but  go  on  south  into  Central 
and  South  America  and  there  are  thousands  of  them.  They 
are  still  fairly  numerous  in  countries  bordering  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Indian  Ocean.  In  Persia  they  are  called 
"red  geese."  And  the  name  isn't  so  far  wrong  as  you'd 
think.  You  notice  that,  unlike  those  stilt-walkers,  the 
herons,  the  flamingoes  have  webbed  feet.  Like  geese  and 
ducks,  also,  they  have  those  rows  of  tooth-like  ridges  on 
the  edges  of  their  bills.  It  is  these  "teeth"  that,  com- 
ing together,  act  as  strainers. 

But  a  queer  thing  about  their  bills,  besides  the  funny 
way  they  have  of  crooking  down  all  of  a  sudden,  is  that 
the  upper  bill  is  smaller  and  fits  down  into  the  lower. 
Stranger  still,  the  birds  can  raise  and  lower  this  upper  bill 
like  the  cover  of  a  coffee-pot. 

They  can  move  the  under  bill  a  little,  too,  but  not  to 
amount  to  anything;  so  you  see  there  was  even  more  to 
the  upside-downness  of  that  bill  than  there  seemed  to  be 
at  first.  The  whole  arrangement  looks  odd  to  us,  but  it 
works  out  beautifully  for  the  birds.  When  they  turn  their 
heads  upside  down  they  can  stir  the  ooze  to  various  depths, 
as  required,  by  using  the  upper  bill  as  a  ploughshare  and 
setting  it  at  different  angles. 

Although  they've  borrowed  some  ideas  from  both  the 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  167 


WHERE  THE  FLAMINGO  KEEPS  ITS  TEETH 

While  teeth,  like  those  of  the  Hesperornis,  went  out  of  fashion  ages  ago,  the  flamingoes 
have  substitutes  for  teeth  which  answer  their  purposes  much  better.  They  have  little  homy 
spines  on  their  bills  and  on  their  tongues.  These  spines  serve  as  fences  to  prevent  the  escape 
of  the  minute  creatures  which  th$  flamingo  scoops  up  with  its  bill.  You  notice  the  spines 
on  the  tongue  are  pointed  backward  toward  the  throat;  and  that's  a  help — to  the  flamingo, 
I  mean,  for  once  on  that  tongue  there's  no  turning  back. 

goose  and  the  heron  families,  the  flamingoes  are  so  different 
from  either  they  are  put  into  a  family  by  themselves,  the 
Phcenicopterida.  This  family  name  is  from  two  Greek 
words  meaning  "red-winged."  If  you  want  to  be  formal 
in  speaking  of  or  to  a  goose  you  must  refer  to  her  family 
as  the  Anserince  which  is  Latin  for  "geese." 

A    LATE   BIRD,   BUT  HE   GETS   THE   WORM 

Another  of  the  long-nosed  earth  workers,  as  curious  in 
his  make-up  as  the  flamingoes,  is  the  kiwi  of  New  Zealand. 


1 68    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Like  the  flamingo,  the  kiwi  uses  his  queer  bill  to  get  his 
living  out  of  the  soil.  You've  heard  the  saying  "it's  the 
early  bird  that  gets  the  worm";  but  while  this  is  true  of 
most  birds  it  doesn't  apply  to  the  kiwis.  Although  they 
live  on  worms,  as  does  Mr.  Early  Bird  of  the  proverb,  they 
do  their  feeding  by  night. 

And  such  a  funny  thing  for  a  bird  to  do,  the  kiwis  go 
about  with  their  noses  to  the  ground  like  a  dog  smellHg 
after  a  rat.  The  reason  they  do  this  is  that  their  nostrils 
are  situated,  not  next  to  their  heads,  as  in  most  birds,  but 
at  the  end  of  the  bill — and  on  purpose;  for  they  locate 
their  suppers,  the  worms  in  the  earth,  by  the  sense  of  smell, 
although  most  birds  have  a  very  poor  sense  of  smell.  Just 
after  sunset,  you'll  see  the  kiwis  moving  about  softly  (as 
if  they  were  afraid  of  scaring  away  the  worms !) ,  and  with 
the  tips  of  their  bills  against  the  ground. 

"Sniff!     Sniff!"     (You  actually  can  hear  them  sniff.) 

There,  he's  found  one !  His  bill  is  not  only  long,  but 
bends  rather  easily  and  that's  why,  perhaps,  he's  able  to 
follow  up  so  closely  the  hints  he  gets  from  his  nose  as  to 
the  location  of  worms,  for  he  usually  brings  the  worm  out 
whole,  and  not  all  pulled  apart  as  the  robins  do  it  some- 
times. He  works  in  soft  earth,  where  most  worms  are  found, 
and  generally  drives  his  bill  in  up  to  his  forehead.  If  all 
goes  well  he  pulls  it  right  out  with  the  worm  at  the  end; 
but  if  there  is  any  likelihood  of  an  accident,  the  kiwi  gently 
moves  his  head  and  neck  to  and  fro  until  he  has  the  soil 
loosened  up  and  so  clears  the  way.  Once  the  worm  is  fairly 
out  of  the  ground,  he  throws  up  his  head  with  a  jerk  and 
swallows  it  whole. 

Because  they  roam  about  so  much  at  night,  the  kiwis 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  169 

sleep  much  of  the  day.  You'll  find  them  in  thickets  or 
in  among  the  forested  hills,  where  they  make  their  homes. 
Sometimes,  however,  you'll  see  one  standing,  leaning  on 


MR.  HORNBILL  LOCKS  THE  DOOR 

In  Africa,  Southern  Asia,  and  the  East  Indies  live  the  Hornbills.  After  the  nest  is  built 
and  the  eggs  laid  in  the  hollow  of  some  big  tree  like  that,  Mrs.  Hornbill  begins  to  set;  and 
Mr.  Hornbill,  to  protect  her  from  enemies,  walls  up  the  nest  with  mud — all  but  that  hole 
through  which  she  puts  her  bill  and  gets  food  from  the  devoted  father  and  husband. 


his  long  bill,  like  a  street-idler  propping  himself  up  with 
his  cane.    If  you  disturb  him,  he  yawns,  as  if  to  say: 
"Oh,  these  bores!    Why  can't  they  let  a  fellow  alone?" 


170    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

But  don't  you  go  too  far  and  annoy  him  or  he'll  get  real 
peevish  and  strike  at  you  with  his  foot. 

Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kiwi  drill  the  earth  every  day — or 
rather  every  night — in  their  search  for  worms,  but  Lady 
Kiwi  does  all  the  excavating  when  it  comes  to  making  the 
nest.  This  she  does  by  digging  a  tunnel,  generally  under 
the  roots  of  a  tree  fern.  There  she  lays  two  eggs  and  then 
her  family  cares  are  practically  over  for  the  time  being, 
since  it  is  the  male  kiwi  who  does  most  of  the  setting. 

Other  long-nosed  tunnel  diggers  you  must  have  seen 
many  a  tidtie  when  you've  been  fishing,  for  they  are  fishers, 
too — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kingfisher.  Their  home  is  at  the  end 
of  a  tunnel  in  the  banks  of  the  stream  where  they  do  their 
fishing. 

While  we're  visiting  them  and  making  a  study  of  their 
household  arrangements,  it's  a  good  thing  for  us  that  we're 
not  kingfishers  ourselves;  for  if  there's  anything  that  makes 
the  kingfishers  mad  it's  to  have  other  kingfishers  fooling 
around  their  place  or  even  coming  into  their  front  yard. 
Each  pair  of  kingfishers  lays  claim  to  the  part  of  the  creek 
in  the  neighborhood  of  their  nest,  as  their  fishing  preserve, 
and  woe  betide  any  other  kingfisher  that  trepasses ! 

Human  fishermen  and  hunters  give  it  out  sometimes 
that  kingfishers  eat  big  fish  that  might  otherwise  be  caught 
with  a  hook  or  a  seine,  but  the  fact  is  these  birds  catch 
only  minnows  and  little  shallow- water  fish. 

In  digging  the  tunnels  for  their  nests  the  two  birds  work 
together,  and  these  tunnels  are  sometimes  fifteen  feet  long. 
So  you  see  that  with  kingfishers  scattered  around  the  world 
as  they  are — some  200  species  in  all — they  must  have  done 
an  enormous  amount  of  ploughing  in  the  course  of  time; 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  171 

to  say  nothing  of  what  they  have  done  in  the  way  of  en- 
riching the  soil  with  fish-bones,  one  of  the  very  best  of  all 
fertilizers. 

The  kingfisher's  nest  wouldn't  be  at  all  attractive  to 
some  birds — the  swallows,  for  example,  who  are  so  par- 
ticular about  having  feather-beds.  It  has  just  a  hard-earth 
floor  like  the  cabins  of  the  American  pioneers,  but  the  little 
kingfishers  are  perfectly  contented  and  happy;  for  their 
meals  are  very  plentiful,  fairly  regular,  and  the  fish  are 
always  fresh. 

FISHING  DAYS  AND  OTHER  DAYS 

But  some  days  even  the  kingfishers  don't  have  fish  for 
dinner.  Instead  they  serve  crayfish  and  frogs.  This  is 
on  cloudy  days,  or  when  the  wind  is  stiff  and  the  water 
rough.  On  such  days  even  the  keen  eyes  of  the  kingfisher 
can't  see  a  fish  or  make  out  exactly  where  the  fish  is  when 
he  does  see  one.  But  on  clear,  quiet  days,  you  should  see 
him  fish.  He  often  dives  from  a  perch  fifty  feet  or  more 
above  the  creek  and  strikes  the  water  so  hard  you'd  think 
it  would  knock  the  breath  out  of  him.  But  up  he  comes 
with  his  fish,  nearly  every  time ! 

Of  course  he  misses  occasionally,  but  just  think  of  see- 
ing a  fish  that  far  away — under  the  water,  mind  you ;  and 
not  a  big  fish,  but  a  little  minnow,  only  two  or  three  inches 
long. 

II.    UNDER  THE  OVEN-BIRD'S  FRIENDLY  ROOF 

Another  great  little  farmer  is  the  oven-bird.  We  can't 
afford  to  miss  him  and  his  wife  for  anything;  and  al- 
though we  have  to  go  to  South  America  to  meet  them, 


172    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

we'll  do  it.  So  here  we  are !  The  oven-birds  build  a  nest 
of  clay  mixed  with  some  hair  or  grass  or  real  fine  little  roots. 
This  nest,  when  it's  all  done — it  takes  a  good  while  to  build 
it — is  so  big  you'd  hardly  believe  it  was  the  home  of  so 
small  a  bird.  It's  a  dome-shaped  affair,  like  a  Dutch 
oven.  In  the  United  States  we  have  what  we  call  an  "oven- 
bird,"  too — one  of  the  water- thrushes;  but  as  it's  dome- 
shaped  nest  is  made  of  grass  and  leaves  and  has  no  clay 
in  it,  we  will  not  include  this  bird  among  the  feathered 
farmers.  The  oven-bird  of  South  America  knows  how  to 
build  its  dome  of  clay  without  any  scaffolding,  which  isn't 
easy. 

OVEN-BIRD   DOORS   AND   THE   FRIENDLY   ROAD 

While  the  big  flamingoes  are  so  shy,  the  little  oven-birds 
don't  care  who  sees  them — provided  they  can  see  him  first. 
This  is  possibly  because  they  want  to  keep  an  eye  on  any 
suspicious  movements;  for  they  make  it  an  invariable 
rule  to  build  so  that  their  front  doors  will  face  the  road. 
But  really  I  think  they  do  this,  not  because  they  are  sus- 
picious, but  because  they  want  to  be  neighborly  and  ar- 
range their  homes  so  they  can  sit  on  their  front  stoop  and 
watch  the  crowd  go  by.  They  not  only  have  their  doors 
where  they  can  see  what's  going  on,  but  they  nearly  al- 
ways build  near  the  country  road  or  the  village  street, 
and  in  the  most  conspicuous  place  they  can  find,  instead 
of  staying  off  by  themselves  in.those  vast,  lonesome  woods 
of  Brazil  where  they  lived  before  man  came. 

When  a  nest  is  to  be  built  the  oven-bird  picks  up  the 
first  likely-looking  root  fibre,  or  a  horsehair,  or  a  hair  from 
an  old  cow's  tail,  carries  it  to  some  pond  or  puddle  and, 


FARMERS  WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS 


173 


with  this  binding  material,  works  bits  of  mud  into  a  little 
ball  about  the  size  of  a  filbert.  Then  he  flies  with  this  pellet 
to  the  place  where  the  nest  is  going  up.  With  clay  balls 
like  this  laid  down  and  then  worked  together,  the  two  birds 


THE  FRIENDLY  DOOR  THAT  FACES  THE  ROAD 

Oven-birds  make  it  a  rule  to  build  their  adobe  homes  so  that  the  front  door  will  face  the  road. 
And  they  nearly  always  build  near  the  road  or  the  village  street.    Neighborly  little  creatures  J 

make  the  floor  of  their  little  house.  On  the  outer  edge  of 
the  floor  they  build  up  the  walls.  These  walls  they  grad- 
ually incline  inward,  just  as  the  Eskimos  build  their  snow- 
block  huts,  until  they  form  a  dome  with  a  little  hole  in  it. 
The  last  little  ball  they  bring  goes  to  fill  that  little  hole 
and  then  the  house  is  done,  so  far  as  the  walls  and  roof 
are  concerned.  Next,  a  front  door  is  cut  through  the  wall 
that  faces  the  road. 

From  the  front  door  a  partition  is  built  reaching  nearly 
to  the  back  of  the  house,  shutting  off  the  front  room  from 


174    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  family  bedroom.  After  the  eggs  are  laid  Papa  Oven- 
bird  stays  in  the  front  room — or  thereabouts — while 
mamma  sets  in  the  back  room.  The  object  of  the  little 
partition  seems  to  be  to  protect  mother  and  the  eggs  and, 
when  they  come,  the  babies  from  wind  and  rain.  When 
the  four  or  five  baby  birds  arrive  both  papa  and  mamma 
put  in  most  of  their  time,  of  course,  feeding  them. 

The  nests  of  the  oven-birds  weigh  eight  or  nine  pounds. 
The  work  of  these  little  feathered  farmers  and  their  wives 
reminds  us  in  more  ways  than  one  of  that  of  Mrs.  Mason- 
Bee,1  but  they  evidently  have  quite  different  notions  about 
housekeeping;  for,  although  their  residences  are  so 'big, 
the  oven-birds  would  evidently  rather  build  than  clean 
house,  while  with  Mrs.  Bee  it's  just  the  other  way.  The 
nests  of  the  oven-birds  are  so  thick  and  strong  they  often 
stand  for  two  or  three  years  in  spite  of  the  rains;  but  the 
birds  build  a  new  nest  every  year,  nevertheless. 

III.    THE  MOUND-BUILDERS 

Another  class  of  birds  that  have  a  fancy  for  big  dome- 
like nests  are  the  mound-birds.  We  find  them  in  Aus- 
tralia, the  Philippines,  and  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas. 
Their  scientific  nickname  is  Megapoddidae,  the  "  big- 
footed."  It's  with  their  big  feet  that  they  pile  immense 
heaps  of  leaves,  twigs,  and  rotten  wood  over  their  eggs. 

And  what  for,  do  you  suppose? 

To  hatch  them !  This  heap  of  material  not  only  ab- 
sorbs the  heat  of  the  sun,  but,  in  decaying,  makes  heat  of 
its  own.  These  mounds,  of  course,  contribute  tons  and 

1  Chapter  VI. 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  175 

tons  of  fertilizer  to  the  soil,  but  what  interests  the  birds 
is  that  these  warm  heaps  hatch  their  eggs.  It's  a  kind  of 
an  incubator  system,  you  see.  As  it  is  with  many  tens  of 
thousands  of  our  own  little  chickens,  these  days,  the  baby 
megapodes  are  born  orphans.  That  heap  of  dead  sticks, 
leaves,  and  earth  is  all  the  mother  they  ever  know.  As 
soon  as  the  mother  birds  have  laid  their  eggs  in  the  mounds 
and  covered  them  up,  they  go  off  gossiping  with  other 
lady  megapodes,  and  don't  bother  their  heads  any  more 
about  their  babies. 

WHY   LITTLE   BIG  FOOT  NEVER   SAYS   "MAMMA" 

But  it  really  doesn't  seem  to  matter.  It's  more  of  a 
question  of  sentiment  than  anything  else,  for  the  babies 
get  on  very  well  by  themselves.  When  the  tune  comes  they 
not  only  make  their  own  way  out  of  the  shell,  as  all  birds 
do,  but  they  work  their  way  up  through  the  rubbish-heap 
and  run  off  at  once  into  the  woods  to  hunt  something  to  eat. 

It's  all  right,  after  all,  I  suppose;  but  if  /  were  a  little 
mound-builder's  baby,  I'd  rather  have  a  mamma  that 
would  stay  around  and  go  places  with  me,  wouldn't  you? 

There's  one  nice  thing  about  these  mamma  mound- 
builders,  though;  they're  so  neighborly  and  sociable.  It's 
like  a  regular  old-fashioned  quilting  party  to  see  them 
build  a  nest.  The  birds  look  like  turkeys,  and  one  of  the 
species  is  called  the  "brush  turkey,"  but  they  are  no  bigger 
than  an  ordinary  chicken — than  a  rather  small  chicken, 
in  fact.  When  I  tell  you,  then,  that  these  mounds  of  theirs 
are  often  six  feet  high  and  twelve  feet  across  in  the  widest 
part,  the  middle,  you  can  see  it  takes  good  team-work 
to  put  them  up. 


176    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

So  a  lot  of  the  lady  mound-builders  get  together  in 
woodsy  places,  where  there's  plenty  of  leaves  and  twigs 
lying  around  and  together  build  a  mound.  One  will  run 
forward  a  little  way,  rake  up  and  grasp  a  handful  of  sticks 
and  leaves — I  mean  to  say  a  footful — and  kick  it  back- 
ward. The  motion  is  much  like  that  of  an  old  hen  scratch- 
ing. Then  another  bird  gathers  a  footful;  then  another, 
and  soon  they  are  all  throwing  the  rubbish  toward  the 
same  pile;  all  as  busy  as  a  sewing-circle,  but — curiously 
enough — nobody  saying  a  word!  Before  the  mounds  are 
quite  done,  they  all  begin  laying  their  eggs  in  them;  as 
many  as  forty  or  fifty,  before  they  are  through. 

Some  species  frequent  scrubby  jungles  along  the  sea. 
These  scratch  a  slanting  hole  in  the  sandy  soil  about  three 
feet  deep  and  lay  their  eggs  on  the  bottom,  loosely  cover- 
ing up  the  mouth  of  the  hole  with  a  collection  of  sticks, 
shells,  and  seaweed.  The  natives  say  these  birds,  before 
they  leave,  go  carefully  over  the  footprints  leading  to  this 
treasure-house,  scratch  them  out  and  make  tracks  leading 
in  various  directions  away  from  the  nest.  And  all  species 
lay  their  eggs  at  night.  You  see  why,  don't  you?  They're 
just  that  cautious. 

SUCH  AN  EGG  FROM  SUCH  A  BIRD 

But  if  you  should  find  one  of  their  nests  full  of  brick- 
red  eggs  you'd  never  guess  who  laid  them,  they're  so  big ! 
Away  back  in  1673,  an  English  missionary  to  China  who 
had  stopped  off  at  the  Philippines,  on  his  way,  wrote  a 
little  book  when  he  got  back  home  about  where  he  had 
been  and  what  he  had  seen,  and  he  just  couldn't  get  over 
the  wonder  of  the  mound-builders.  Among  other  things 
he  says,  in  one  place  in  his  book: 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  177 


BRUSH  TURKEYS  BUILDING  THEIR  INCUBATORS 

It's  like  an  old-fashioned  quilting  party — the  co-operative  mound  building  of  the  brush 
turkeys.     The  text  tells  you  about  that  back  kick  of  theirs. 


"There  is  a  very  singular  bird  called  Tabon.  What  I  and  very 
many  more  admired  l  is  that  being  in  body  no  bigger  than  an  ordi- 
nary chicken,  it  lays  an  egg  larger  than  a  goose's." 

"So,"  he  adds,  "the  egg  is  bigger  than  the  bird  itself!" 

IV.    THE  SWALLOWS 

To  make  the  acquaintance  of  either  the  mound-builders 
or  those  dear  little  oven-birds — aren't  they  dear  ? — we  must 
be  travellers,  of  course,  for  with  their  short  wings  neither 

1  "Admire,"  in  those  days,  meant  "to  wonder  at." 


1 78    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  mound-builders  nor  the  oven-birds  ever  could  come 
all  the  way  up  here  to  see  us.  But  another  feathered  far- 
mer— and,  like  the  oven-bird,  a  clay-worker  and  most 
neighborly — everybody  knows;  the  swallow.  Like  Kim, 
the  swallow  is  the  little  friend  of  all  the  world. 

Swallows  of  one  kind  and  another  are  found  everywhere 
— almost  everywhere  that  people  can  live;  usually  where 
people  do  live.  And  if  all  the  soil  they've  helped  pulverize 
and  mix — even  since  the  days  when  the  swallows  built 
under  the  eaves  and  rafters  of  the  ark — was  spread  out,  it 
would  easily  make  another  Egypt,  I  do  believe! 

But,  speaking  of  the  way  swallows  take  to  human  so- 
ciety, do  you  know  where  our  barn-swallows  came  from? 
They  were  originally  cliff-dwellers  away  out  West.  The 
early  explorers  found  enormous  collections  of  their  nests 
plastered  all  over  the  perpendicular  cliffs  and  along  the 
bluffs.  Just  as  soon,  however,  as  the  country  settled  up 
and  men  put  up  barns  these  little  cliff-dwellers,  deserting 
rocks  and  bluffs,  began  building  their  bottle-shaped  nests 
under  the  eaves.  The  swallows  live  on  insects — including 
squash-bugs,  stink-bugs,  shield-bugs,  and  jumping  plant- 
lice;  and  that's  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  reasons  for  the 
curious  fact  that  they  left  their  ancient  family  seats — they 
found  so  many  more  insects  about  the  barns  and  the  far- 
mer's fields  and  the  gardens  and  the  orchards. 

TINY   SOIL  MILLS   OF    THE   BABY   SWALLOW 

Haven't  you  often  watched  them  and  listened  to  them, 
diving  and  chattering  around  the  barn  in  their  busy  season; 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  spring  and  summer  time?  Then  the 
air  is  full  of  insects  and  is  fairly  woven  with  their  darting 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS 


179 


wings.  Some  keep  busy  picking  up  the  insects  that  are 
always  hovering  about  in  a  barnyard,  while  others  dash 
away  to  some  near-by  marsh  or  to  the  meadow  or  to  the 
creek.  Over  the  grain-fields  they  go,  over  the  meadows 
and  back  again  straight  to  the  nest  where  downy  babies 
are  cheeping  for  them.  The  parents  feed  them,  stop  and 
chatter  a  moment,  and  then  off  they  go.  Follow  that  one 


THE  SAND  MARTIN  AND  HIS  HOME  IN  THE  BANK 


down  to  the  marsh.  See  how  she  flies  high,  round  and 
round  in  circles,  and  then  swoops  for  an  insect.  She  missed 
him  !  Then  she  wheels,  darts  up — darts  down — to  right — 
to  left.  There,  she's  got  him !  Then  off  like  an  arrow  to 
the  nest.  The  soft-bodied  insects  are  chosen  and  chewed 
up  for  the  babies,  while  the  parents  eat  the  tougher  ones. 
And  to  help  digestion  they  give  the  babies  little  bits  of 
gravel,  although  they  don't  use  it  themselves.  So,  in  grind- 
ing up  this  gravel  the  baby  birds  help  make  soil  before 
they  are  old  enough  to  do  any  nest-building. 
You've  noticed,  of  course,  that  all  the  swallows  about 


i8o    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

a  barn  don't  build  under  the  eaves.  Some  build  under 
the  rafters  inside  the  barn.  That  isn't  just  a  matter  of 
taste;  it's  family  tradition.  The  eave-builders  are  de- 
scendants of  the  cliff-swallows,  while  the  birds  known  to 
bird  students  as  "barn"  swallows  build  under  the  rafters. 

But  they  don't  take  to  the  fine,  new  modern  bams — all 
spick  and  span — the  barn-swallows  don't.  If  there's  an 
old  gray  barn  with  doors  that  never  shut  quite  snug,  a 
board  off  here  and  there,  and  several  panes  in  the  cob- 
webbed  windows  broken  out 

"Oh,  just  the  thing!"  say  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Swallow,  and 
they  turn  their  backs  on  the  new  barn  and  proceed  to  build 
their  cute  little  nests  of  clay  among  the  rafters  of  that  old 
tumbled-down  affair.  In  their  preference  for  the  old  gray 
barns,  the  swallows  are  like  the  artists,  the  painters  that 
Mr.  Dooley  told  about.  He  was  talking  about  artists  to 
his  friend,  Mr.  Hennessey: 

"I  don't  mane  the  kind  of  painther  that  paints  yer  fine 
new  barn,"  said  Mr.  Dooley.  "I  mane  the  kind  of  painther 
that  makes  a  pitcher  of  yer  old  barn  and  wants  to  charge 
ye  more'n  the  barn  itself  is  worth." 

WHY  ARTISTS  AND    SWALLOWS   PREFER   OLD   BARNS 

The  reason  the  artists  prefer  old  barns  is  that  they  look 
better  in  pictures,  but  the  reason  the  barn-swallow  shows 
the  same  taste  is  that,  with  windows  that  have  panes  in 
them  and  doors  that  shut  tight  you'd  no  sooner  start  to 
build  a  nest  than,  coming  back  with  a  pellet  of  clay,  or 
bringing  a  feather  for  the  little  feather-bed,  you'd  be  liable 
to  find  the  door  shut  and  you  could  no  more  get  in  until 
chore  time  than  you  could  open  the  time-lock  in  the  First 


FARMERS  WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  181 

National  Bank.  And  suppose  there  were  babies  and  you'd 
just  got  to  get  back — you  see  it  wouldn't  do  at  all ! 

But  both  the  barn-swallows  and  the  old  gray  barns  will 
be  seen  only  in  pictures  before  long,  if  things  keep  on;  what 
with  these  new  barns  and  the  cats  always  trying  to  catch 
the  few  swallows  there  are  left — when  you're  swooping 
low  to  catch  a  squash-bug,  say — and  those  hateful  spar- 
rows that  tear  your  nest  to  pieces.  And  for  several  years 
swallows  were  killed  by  thousands  to  make  ornaments  for 
women's  hats  until  this  shameful  business  was  stopped 
by  law ! 

On  the  Pacific  Coast,  if  you're  out  there  even  as  early 
as  March,  you'll  see  a  purplish-bronze  swallow,  with  bronze- 
green  markings.  These  swallows  make  a  specialty  of 
orchard  insects  and  that's  why,  perhaps,  they  build  under 
the  eaves  of  the  farmhouse  rather  than  the  barn.  But, 
like  the  rest  of  the  swallow  family,  they  think  nothing 
quite  so  nice  as  a  bed  of  feathers  to  raise  babies  in,  and 
they  know  as  well  as  the  cliff-swallows  and  the  barn-swal- 
low that  a  barnyard  is  a  great  place  for  feathers. 

And  besides,  there's  a  man  out  there,  in  one  place,  that 
keeps  a  supply  of  feathers  just  to  give  away  when  the 
swallows  are  nesting.  Watch  him,  over  on  the  hillside. 
He  takes  a  little  bunch  of  feathers  and  throws  them  up 
into  the  air  from  his  open  hand.  A  swallow  skims  by  and 
catches  one  of  these  feathers  before  it  touches  the  ground. 
But  soon  the  word  passes  along: 

"Here's  that  nice  man  with  the  feathers!" 

And,  pretty  soon,  there  are  a  half-dozen  in  the  game. 
They  flit  closer  and  closer  to  that  generous  hand,  seizing 
the  feathers  almost  the  moment  they  are  in  the  air.  Then 


1 82    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

one,  bolder  than  the  rest,  snatches  a  feather  right  from 
the  man's  thumb  and  finger.  The  little  rogue ! 

By  the  way,  do  you  know  who  that  man  is?  It's  Mr. 
W.  L.  Finley,  State  Ornithologist  of  Oregon.  "Our  little 
brothers  of  the  air,"  as  Olive  Thorne  Miller  calls  the  birds, 
are  getting  to  be  so  much  appreciated,  not  only  as  the 
friends  of  man,  but  for  their  beauty  and  the  usefulness  of 
their  lives,  that  both  our  State  and  national  governments 
have  laws  to  protect  them,  and  such  men  as  Mr.  Finley 
are  employed  to  look  after  their  interests. 

Of  course,  he  doesn't  have  to  furnish  feather-beds  for 
the  baby  swallows — he  just  does ! 


OFF  FOR  THE  SOUTH 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR   FEATHERS  183 

HIDE   AND   SEEK   IN  THE   LIBRARY 

If  you  want  to  get  better  acquainted  with  ostriches  you  should 
read  Olive  Thome  Miller's  "African  Nine  Feet  High,"  in  "Little 
Folks  in  Feathers  and  Fur."  Carpenter  deals  with  the  ostrich  in 
his  "How  the  World  is  Clothed"  and  in  his  "Geographic  Reader 
on  Africa";  Johonnott's  "Neighbors  with  Wings  and  Fins"  gives 
a  chapter  to  "Giants  of  Desert  and  Plain,"  among  which  you  may 
be  sure  he  includes  the  ostrich. 

Allen,  in  writing  about  "Some  Strange  Nurseries"  ("Nature's 
Work  Shop"),  tells  why  it  is  Papa  Ostrich  has  most  to  do  with  the 
hatching  of  the  eggs  when  the  sun  is  not  on  the  job. 

Lucas,  in  his  "Animals  of  the  Past,"  speaks  of  ostriches  and  croc- 
odiles as  the  nearest  living  relatives  of — guess  what — the  dinosaurs ! 
(Yet  look  at  the  dinosaur  in  "  The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble" 
and  see  if  you  can't  make  out  a  good  deal  of  the  ostrich  and  the 
crocodile  in  him.) 

But,  speaking  of  Papa  Ostrich's  parental  duties,  did  you  know 
that  it's  Mr.  Puffin,  and  not  Mrs.  Puffin,  who  digs  the  family  bur- 
row? Arabella  Buckley's  "Morals  of  Science"  tells  that  and 
many  other  interesting  things  about  devoted  husbands  among  the 
birds,  including  how  Papa  Nightingale  feeds  Mamma  Nightingale. 

In  the  "Children's  Hour,"  Volume  7,  page  310,  you  will  find  an 
interesting  article  about  the  puffins  of  Iceland. 

"The  Romance  of  Animal  Arts  and  Crafts"  tells  about  one  of 
the  feathered  clay-workers,  the  nuthatch  of  Syria,  and  why  he 
makes  his  nest  look  like  a  rock.  These  nuthatches  love  to  build 
so  well  that  they  often  make  nests  that  they  never  use;  and  they 
even  help  put  up  nests  for  their  neighbors ! 

This  book  also  gives  interesting  details  about  the  hornbill,  and 
how  and  why  he  walls  up  his  mate  in  her  nest  in  the  hollow  of  a 
tree.  Father  Hornbill,  of  course,  gets  all  the  meals  for  Mother 
Hornbill,  while  she's  setting.  She  simply  can't  get  out,  and  you 
should  see  him  by  the  time  the  babies  are  old  enough  to  leave  the 
nest.  He's  worn  to  a  shadow ! 

Rooks,  it  seems,  do  a  little  digging  under  certain  circumstances. 
Selous  tells  about  it  in  his  "Bird  Life  Glimpses."  In  this  book  you 
will  find  a  delightful  description  of  martins  building.  It  almost 
makes  you  want  to  be  a  martin.  It  also  tells  about  the  work  of  the 
sand  martins.  You  will  hardly  believe  how  fast  they  work.  The 


1 84    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

house-martin's  nest  is  more  elaborate  than  the  swallow's.  This 
book  tells  why  the  house-martins  begin  work  so  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  why  they  have  to  delay  their  nest-building  if  the  weather 
is  either  too  wet  or  too  dry. 

White,  in  his  famous  "Natural  History  of  Selbourne,"  tells  how 
worried  he  was  because  certain  swallows  just  would  build  facing 
southeast  and  southwest. 

Birds,  besides  being  workers  of  the  soil,  are  great  sowers  of  seeds. 
Darwin  tells  how  he  reared  eighty  seedlings  from  a  single  little  clod 
on  a  bird's  foot.  What  do  you  suppose  he  did  that  for  ?  You  just 
look  it  up  in  the  index  to  his  "Origin  of  Species." 

Doesn't  it  seem  funny  that  one  of  the  little  farmer  birds — a  bur- 
rower — should  go  into  partnership  with  a  lizard?  There  is  one  in 
New  Zealand  that  does  that  very  thing.  He  is  called  the  titi. 
What  the  titi  does  for  the  lizard  is  to  provide  him  with  a  home  in 
his  burrow,  but  what  do  you  suppose  the  lizard  does  in  return  to 
pay  for  his  lodging?  Read  about  it  in  Ingersoll's  "Wit  of  the 
Wild,"  in  the  chapter  on  "Animal  Partnerships." 

Do  you  know  why  the  phcebe  bird  so  often  uses  moss  in  building 
her  nest?  And  how  the  phcebes  that  make  green  nests  keep  them 
green?  And  how  Mrs.  P.  puts  a  stone  roof  on  her  house?  You 
wiU  find  all  about  it  in  "Wit  of  the  Wild." 

The  same  chapter,  "The  Phcebe  at  Home,"  tells  why  the  phcebe 
bird  took  to  building  under  bridges,  and  why  she  builds  in  a  car- 
riage shed  instead  of  a  barn,  as  the  barn-swallow  does. 

"Bird  Life,"  by  Chapman,  is  a  guide  to  the  study  of  our  com- 
mon birds.  The  beauty  about  this  book  is  that  it  has  seventy-five 
full-page  plates  in  the  natural  colors,  with  brief  descriptions,  so 
that  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  bring  the  mind  picture  of  the  bird  you 
have  seen  alongside  the  picture  in  the  book,  and  there's  the  answer ! 
Nobody  has  written  more  delightful  books  on  birds  than  Olive 
Thorne  Miller.  "Little  Brothers  of  the  Air"  is  one  of  them. 
You  couldn't  keep  your  hands  off  a  book  with  a  name  like  that, 
could  you?  Then  there  is  her  "Children's  Book  of  Birds,"  "True 
Bird  Stories,"  illustrated  by  Louis  Agassiz  Fuertes,  and  "Little 
Folks  in  Feathers  and  Fur,"  which,  as  you  can  see,  goes  outside  the 
bird  family.  John  Burroughs's  "Wake  Robin"  deals  not  with 
robins  alone,  but  with  birds  and  bird  habits  in  general. 

But  the  greatest  book  about  birds — the  wonder  of  the  bird  and 
his  relations  to  the  whole  animal  world — is  very  properly  called 


FARMERS   WHO  WEAR  FEATHERS  185 

"The  Bird,"  by  C.  William  Beebe,  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  bird 
department  of  the  great  New  York  Zoo.  Among  other  things  it 
tells: 

How  Nature  practised  drawing — so  to  speak — for  years  before 
she  could  finally  make  a  proper  bird.  (If  you  have  ever  tried  to 
draw  a  bird  from  memory  and  realized  what  a  bad  job  you 
made  out  of  it,  you  will  sympathize  with  her.)  How  they  know 
that  the  earliest  birds  Nature  made,  as  well  as  being  very  homely, 
weren't  at  all  smart;  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with 
clever  Jim  Crow,  for  example.  How  "a  bird's  swaddling  clothes 
and  his  first  full-dress  are  cut  from  the  same  piece,"  the  very  words 
of  the  book.  About  certain  birds  that  have  one  set  of  wings  to 
play  in  and  a  new  set  for  flying,  like  a  child  wearing  jumpers  to 
save  his  nice  clothes !  About  the  world  of  interesting  things  you 
can  discover  with  the  bones  of  a  boiled  chicken. 

And  so  on  for  nearly  five  hundred  pages,  and  as  many  illustra- 
tions; the  most  striking  collection  of  pictures  explaining  birds  that 
I  ever  saw. 


THE  END  OF  A  BUSY  SEASON 

"And  there's  the  corn  and  the  pumpkins  and  the  carrots  and  the  turnips  and  the  potatoes 
in  the  root  cellar  and  the  jelly  in  the  jelly-glasses — we  helped  make  them  til  " 


CHAPTER  X 

(OCTOBER) 

It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  tip  of  a  root  acts 
like  the  brain  of  the  lower  animals. — Darwin. 

THE  BUSY  FINGERS   OF  THE   ROOTS 

This  has  been  a  very  busy  season  for  Mr.  Root  and  his 
family.  It  always  is,  and  you  can  imagine  they're  all  glad 
when  Fall  comes  and  they  can  lay  by  for  the  Winter. 

"There's  your  apple  crop,  I  helped  make  that,"  Mr. 
Root  might  say.  "And  there's  the  corn  and  the  wheat 
in  the  granary,  and  the  rye  and  the  oats  and  the  barley; 
and  the  hay  in  the  mow;  and  the  pumpkins  and  the  car- 
rots, and  the  turnips,  and  the  potatoes  in  the  root  cellar; 

186 


THE   BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOFS        187 

and  the  jelly  in  the  jelly-glasses,  and  the  jam,  and  the  pre- 
serves— we  helped  make  them  all. 

"And  we've  been  working  for  you  almost  since  the  world 
began;  almost,  but  not  quite — for  the  earliest  plants,  the 
Lichens,  for  example— didn't  have  true  roots. 

''Yes,  and — well,  I  don't  want  to  say  anything — Mr. 
Lichen  has  been  a  good  neighbor — but  he  never  did  amount 
to  much;  never  could.  No  plant  can  amount  to  much 
\vithout  roots.  But  with  roots  and  a  good  start  a  plant 
can  do  almost  anything — raise  flowers  and  fruit  and  nuts, 
and  help  grow  trees  so  tall  you  can  hardly  see  the  tops  of 
them.  And,  it  isn't  alone  what  we  do  for  the  plants  we 
belong  to,  but  for  the  soil,  for  other  plants  and  roots  that 
come  after  we're  dead  and  gone.  For  them  we  even  split 
up  rocks,  and  so  start  these  rocks  on  their  way  to  becom- 
ing soil." 

I.    ALL  IN  THE  DAY'S  WORK 

It's  a  fact.  Roots  do  split  rocks.  Hundreds  of  times 
I've  been  in  the  cracks  of  rocks  that  were  split  in  that  way. 
I  mean  right  when  the  splitting  was  going  on.  This  hap- 
pened oftenest  where  trees  grew  on  the  stony  flanks  of 
mountains.  Seeds  of  the  pines,  say,  dropped  in  crevices 
by  the  wind,  sprout  in  the  soil  they  find  there,  and  then, 
as  these  shoots  grow  up  into  trees,  the  enlarged  roots,  in 
their  search  for  more  soil,  thrust  themselves  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  original  lodging-place,  and  so  split  even  big 
rocks.  The  tap-roots  do  the  heaviest  part  of  this  pioneer 
work.  After  the  older  and  larger  roots  have  broken  up 
the  rock,  the  smaller  roots  and  fibres,  feeling  their  way 


1 88    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

about  among  the  stones,  enter  the  smaller  openings  and 
by  their  growth  divide  the  rock  again  and  again. 

But  it's  a  lot  of  hard  work  for  little  return,  so  far  as  these 
early  settlers  are  concerned;  just  a  bare  living.  All  these 
rock  fragments,  in  the  course  of  the  years,  become  soil, 
but  the  amount  of  decay  is  small  in  the  lifetime  of  the  tree 
that  does  the  breaking. 

A  root,  as  you  doubtless  know,  tapers.  This  enables  it 
to  enter  a  rock  crevice  like  a  wedge.  As  it  pushes  its  way 
in  farther  and  farther  it  is  growing  bigger  and  bigger,  and 
it  is  this  steady  pressure  that  breaks  the  rock.  Even  the 
tiny  root  of  a  bean  grows  with  a  force  of  several  pounds, 
and  the  power  exerted  by  the  growth  of  big  roots  is  some- 
thing tremendous.  At  Amherst  Agricultural  College,  one 
tune,  they  harnessed  up  a  squash  to  see  how  hard  it  could 
push  by  growing.  From  a  force  of  sixty  pounds,  when  it 
was  a  mere  baby,  what  do  you  suppose  its  push  amounted 
to  when  it  had  reached  full  squashhood  in  October? 
Nearly  5,000  pounds;  over  two  tons! 

But  don't  think  because  roots  can  and  do  split  rocks, 
if  need  be,  that  they  go  about  looking  for  such  hard  work. 
On  the  contrary.  In  travelling  through  the  soil  they  al- 
ways choose  the  easiest  route,  the  softest  spots.  They 
use  their  brains  as  well  as  their  muscles,  and  what  they  do 
with  these  brains  is  almost  unbelievable. 

Yet  the  roots  are  such  modest,  retiring  folks,  always 
hiding,  that  it  was  a  long  time  before  the  wise  men — the 
science  people — found  out  what  all  they  do.  It  took  a 
lot  of  science  people  and  the  wisest — including  the  great 
Darwin — to  get  the  story,  and  they  haven't  got  it  all  yet, 
as  you  will  see.  It  was  Darwin  who  first  thought  of  having 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE   ROOTS        189 


HOW  A  LITTLE  ROOT  SPLIT  A  GRANITE  BLOCK 

The  little  winged  seed  from  which  this  pine-tree  grew  was  carried  by  the  wind  one  day 
into  a  tiny  crack  in  that  big  granite  block.  As  the  treelet  grew  the  tap  root  split  the  rock, 
penetrated  to  the  earth  below  and  fed  the  trunk  until  it  became,  as  you  see,  a  tree  40  feet 
high  and  18  inches  in  diameter ! 


Mr.  Root  write  out  his  autobiography — or  part  of  it — 
the  story  of  his  travels;  for  he  does  travel,  not  only  for- 
ward— as  everybody  knows — but  around  and  around.  A 
regular  globe-trotter ! 

Mr.  Darwin  was  a  wonderful  hand  at  that  sort  of  thing 


190    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

— getting  nature  people  to  tell  their  stories.  He  was  an 
inventor,  like  Mr.  Edison;  only,  instead  of  inventing  tele- 
phones for  human  beings  to  talk  with,  he  invented  ways 
of  talking  for  nature  people.  You  saw  how  he  fixed  it  so 
that  the  earthworms  could  tell  what  they  knew  about 


WHY  BABY  PLANTS  BACK  INTO  THE  WORLD 

Most  plants  back  into  the  world  out  of  the  seed  like  that.  Why?  To  protect  their  ten- 
der first  leaves.  Suppose  you  were  taking  some  very  valuable  thing,  easily  injured — baby 
brother,  say — through  a  swinging  door  and  you  had  to  use  both  hands  to  carry  him.  You 
wouldn't  open  the  door  by  pushing  that  dear,  little  tender  head  of  his  against  it,  would  you? 
You'd  open  it  by  backing  through. 


geometry  and  botany.  Well,  in  the  case  of  the  roots, 
what  did  he  do  one  day  but  take  a  piece  of  glass,  smoke 
it  all  over  with  lampblack — you'd  have  thought  he  was 
going  to  look  at  an  eclipse — and  then  set  it  so  that  Mr. 
Root  could  use  it  as  a  kind  of  writing-desk.  In  a  hitch- 
ing, jerky  sort  of  way  roots  turn  round  and  round  as  they 
grow  forward.  In  the  ground,  to  be  sure,  a  root  can't  move 
as  freely  nor  as  fast  as  it  did  out  in  the  open  and  over  this 
smooth  glass,  but  it  does  turn,  slowly,  little  by  little.  The 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS        191 


very  first  change  in  a  growing  seed  is  the  putting  out  of  a 
tiny  root,  and  from  the  first  this  root  feels  its  way  along, 
like  one  trying  to  find  something  in  a  dark  room.  Thus 
it  searches  out  the  most  mellow  soil  and  also  any  little 
cracks  down  which  it  can  pass. 

"Here's  a  fine  opening  for 
a  live  young  chap,"  we  can 
imagine  one  of  these  roots 
saying  when  it  comes  to  an 
empty  earthworm's  burrow  or 
a  vacancy  left  by  some  other 
little  root  that  has  decayed 
and  gone  away.  Roots  always 
help  themselves,  when  they 
can,  to  ready-made  openings, 
and  it  is  this  round-and-round 
motion  that  enables  them  to 
find  these  openings. 

But  even  this  isn't  all.  A 
root  not  only  moves  forward 
and  bends  down — so  that  it 
may  always  keep  under  cover 

and  away  from  the  light — but  it  has  a  kind  of  rocking  mo- 
tion, swinging  back  and  forth,  like  a  winding  river  between 
its  banks,  and  for  a  somewhat  similar  reason. 

"It's  looking  for  a  soft  spot!"   says   the   high   school 
boy,  "just  as  the  river  does." 

NO   HIT-OR-MISS   METHODS   FOR  MR.    ROOT 

Exactly.    But  not  in  the  sense  that  this  phrase  is  used  in 
slang.     The  root  has  certain  work  to  do,  and  it  does  it  in 


CHARLES  DARWIN 
The  great  naturalist. 


IQ2    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

the  quickest  and  best  way.  It  can  get  food  more  quickly 
out  of  mellow  soil  than  out  of  hard,  and  so  it  constantly 
hunts  it  up.  I  mean  just  that — hunts  it  up.  For  it  isn't 
by  aimless  rocking  back  and  forth  that  roots  just  happen 
upon  the  mellow  places.  It's  the  other  way  around;  it's 
from  a  careful  feeling  along  for  the  mellow  places  that  the 
rocking  motion  results. 

"But  how  on  earth  do  the  roots  do  this?  What  makes 
them  do  it?" 

That's  what  any  live  boy  would  ask,  wouldn't  he  ?  So 
you  may  be  sure  that's  what  the  science  people  asked,  and 
this  is  the  answer: 

The  roots,  like  all  parts  of  the  plant — like  all  parts  of 
boys  and  girls  and  grown  people,  for  the  matter  of  that — 
are  made  up  of  little  cells.  Well,  these  cells,  first  on  one 
side  of  the  root  and  then  the  other,  enlarge,  and  so  pump 
in  an  extra  flow  of  sap.  Now,  as  we  know,  the  sap  con- 
tains food  for  the  plant,  just  as  blood  contains  food  for 
our  bodies;  and  more  food  means  more  growth.  So  the 
side  of  the  root  where  the  cells  first  swell  out  grows  fastest 
and  thus  pushes  the  root  over  on  the  opposite  side.  Then 
the  cells  on  this  opposite  side  swell,  and  the  root  is  turned 
in  the  other  direction  again.  So  it  goes — right  and  left, 
up  and  down.  And  when  these  two  motions — the  up  and 
down  and  right  and  left — are  put  together,  don't  you  see 
what  you  get  ?  The  round-and-round  motion ! 

Precisely  the  same  thing  happened  right  now  when  you 
turned  your  finger  round  and  round  to  imitate  the  motion 
of  the  root.  (I  saw  you !)  The  muscles  that  did  the  work 
swelled  up  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other,  just  as 
they  do  when  you  bend  your  elbow,  when  you  walk,  when 
you  breathe,  when  you  laugh. 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS        193 

And  more  than  that:  You  know  how  tired  you  get  if 
you  keep  using  one  set  of  muscles  all  the  time— in  sawing 
fire-wood,  for  example.  Yet  you  can  play  ball  by  the  hour 
and  never  think  of  being  tired  until  it's  all  over;  because, 
for  one  thing,  you  are  constantly  bringing  new  muscles 
into  action  as  you  go  to  bat,  as  you  strike,  as  you  run  bases. 
It's  the  same  way  with  the  roots,  it  seems.  For 
the  theory  is  that  after  the  cells  on  one  side  have 
swelled,  they  rest;  then  the  cells  on  the  other  side 
get  to  work. 

"But  what  starts  the  movement?"  you  may  say. 
"The  idea  of  moving  my  arms  and  legs  starts  in 
my  brain." 


WHERE   MR.    ROOT   KEEPS   HIS   BRAINS 

Just  so  again.    The  root  has  a  brain,  too,  or  what 
answers  for  a  brain.    And  the  root's  brain,  is  in  its 
head;  at  least  in  the  vicinity  of  its  nose — that  is  to 
say,  its  tip.     It's  the  tip  that  first 
finds  out  which  side  of  the  road  is        WHERE  MR.  ROOT 
best,  and  passes  the  word  back  to  the         WEARS  HIS  CAP 

,       i  ,     ,.      ,     .  A  root  wears  its  cap  right 

part     Of    the     rOOt    JUSt     behind     it     tO         where  you  do— over  its  brain 
i          j    J.T.  •  it.  Ti>         1         il.  department;    that  is  to  say, 

bend  this  way  or  that.  It  s  also  the  thetip.  it  is  called  the  "root 
tip  that  feels  the  pull  of  gravity  and  £pm'  ^ protects  the  tip 
knows  that  it's  the  business  of  roots 
to  keep  under  cover.  And  Mr.  Root  just  will  have  it  that 
way !  You  can't  change  his  mind.  Mr.  Darwin  tried  it 
and  he  couldn't;  although  he  finally  changed  human  peo- 
ple's minds  a  lot. 

This  is  how  he  tried  it  on  a  root.  He  took  a  bean  with 
a  little  root  that  had  just  started  out  into  the  world.  He 
cut  off  the  tip  and  then  set  the  bean  so  that  the  root  stuck 


194    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

straight  up.  It  continued  to  grow  that  way  for  some  little 
time.  Finally,  however,  a  new  tip  had  formed.  Then 
there  was  a  general  waking  up,  as  if  the  tip  said  to  the  rest 
of  the  root: 

"Here,  here,  this  will  never  do!  Where  are  you  going? 
You  must  bend  doivn!" 

Anyhow  that's  what  the  root  proceeded  to  do.  One 
side  seemed  to  stop  growing,  almost,  while  the  other  side 
grew  rapidly  and  so  the  bending  was  done. 

"  Did  you  ever !    But  how  does  the  tip  send  back  word  ?  " 

"Don't  ask  me!"  says  the  science  man;  say  all  the 
science  men,  even  to  this  day.  "We  don't  know  yet  just 
how  it's  done.  But  we're  studying  these  things  all  the 
time,  and  we'll  know  more  about  it  by  and  by.  Mean- 
while, perhaps  you'll  tell  us  why  you  say  'ouch'  and  pull 
your  finger  away  when  you  touch  something  hot." 

"Oh,"  you  reply,  "I  say  'ouch'  because  it  hurts;  and 
teacher  and  the  Physiology  say  my  arm  pulls  my  hand 
away  because  my  head  tells  it  to." 

"Yes,  but  how  does  the  head  make  the  arm  do  the  pull- 
ing? What's  the  connection?"  says  the  science  man. 

Well,  I  guess  we'll  have  to  tell  him  we  don't  know,  won't 
we? 

But  all  the  root's  brains  aren't  in  the  tip,  any  more  than 
all  our  brains  are  in  our  heads.  Scattered  through  our 
bodies,  you  know,  are  little  brains,  the  ganglia,  that  con- 
trol different  parts  of  the  body.  So  it  is  with  roots.  For 
instance,  a  root  at  a  short  distance  from  the  tip,  is  sensi- 
tive to  the  touch  of  hard  objects  in  such  a  way  that  it  bends 
toward  them  instead  of  turning  away,  as  the  tip  does.  The 
result  is  that  when  a  root  comes  to  a  pebble,  say,  under 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS   OF  THE  ROOTS        195 

ground,  the  sides  of  the  root  press  close  up  to  the  sides  of 
the  pebble — turn  around  corners  sharply,  by  the  shortest 
route — and  so  get  over  the  obstruction  as  soon  as  possible 
and  resume  their  course  in  the  soil. 

And  different  parts  of  a  plant's  root  system  respond  in 


BUT  THEY  COULDN'T  CHANGE  ITS  MIND 

Some  sprouting  seedlings  were  attached  to  a  disk  like  that,  and  when  the  roots  started  to 
grow  down,  the  disk  was  turned  to  make  them  point  upwards.  But,  no  Sir !  The  roots  just 
wouldn't  grow  upward.  They  turned  downward.  Every  time ! 

different  ways  to  the  pull  of  gravity,  and  some  don't  re- 
spond at  all.  The  tap-root,  for  example,  which  always 
grows  down,  has  roots  growing  out  from  it  horizontally. 
They  just  won't  grow  any  other  way,  and  yet  this  is  also 
supposed  to  be  due  to  the  influence  of  gravity.  Then,  from 
these  horizontal  roots,  grow  out  a  third  set,  and  they  don't 
seem  to  pay  any  attention  whatever  to  gravity.  They 
grow  out  in  all  directions — every  which  way — so. that  if 
there  is  a  bit  to  eat  anywhere  in  the  neighborhood  they 
are  reasonably  sure  to  find  it.  You  see  it  works  out  all 
right. 

When  a  plant  first  begins  to  peep  into  the  world  out  of 
that  wonder  box  we  call  the  seed,  it's  the  root,  as  we  know, 


196    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

that  does  the  peeping;  it  comes  first.  And  its  first  busi- 
ness is  to  get  a  firm  hold  in  the  soil.  So  a  lot  of  fine  hair- 
like  fibres  grow  right  and  left  and  all  around  and  take  a 
firm  grip.  There  is  an  acid  in  the  root  that  dissolves  what- 
ever the  root  touches  that  has  any  food  in  it — including 
pebbles  and  old  bones — and  so  makes  a  kind  of  sticky  stuff 
that  hardens.  In  this  way  these  fibrous  roots  not  only 
get  good  meals  for  themselves  and  the  rest  of  the  plant, 
but  they  hold  the  plant  firmly  in  the  soil,  against  the  strain 
of  the  winds.  They  also  give  the  tap-root  something  to 
brace  its  back  against,  as  it  were,  while  it  pushes  down  for 
water,  for  the  moisture  in  the  damper  portion  of  the  soil 
beneath. 

As  you  may  have  noticed,  a  seed  merely  lying  loose  on 
the  ground  is  lifted  up  by  its  first  little  root  in  its  effort  to 
poke  its  nose  into  the  soil.  But  Nature  makes  provisions 
for  covering  seeds  up.  They  are  covered  by  the  castings 
of  the  earthworms,  the  dirt  thrown  out  by  burrowing  ani- 
mals and  scratching  birds.  Some  seeds  fall  into  cracks 
where  the  ground  is  very  dry  and  others  are  washed  into 
them  by  the  rains;  while  these  as  well  as  seeds  lying  on  the 
surface  are  covered  by  the  washings  of  the  rain.  Then 
come  the  roots  that  grip  the  soil. 

Always  growing  just  back  of  the  tip,  are  thousands  of 
root-hairs,  as  fine  as  down.  These  get  food  from  the  soil. 
They  soon  disappear  from  the  older  parts  of  the  root,  so 
that  it  stops  gathering  food  itself  and  puts  in  all  its  time 
passing  along  to  the  stem  and  leaves  the  food  gathered  by 
the  finer  and  younger  roots.  This  is  why  plants  are  so  apt 
to  wilt  if  you  aren't  careful  when  transplanting  them;  the 
root-hairs  get  broken  off.  For  the  same  reason,  corn,  after 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS        197 

it  grows  tall,  is  not  ploughed  deeply.  The  fine  roots  reach 
out  between  the  rows  and  the  ploughshare  would  cut  them 
off. 

II.     MR.  ROOT'S  PRESENCE  OF  MIND 

All  these  things  and  more  the  roots  do  in  their  daily 
work — in  the  ordinary  course  of  business.    And  it's  won- 


Jb 


THREE  SCHOOLS  OF  STRATEGY 

derful  enough.  Don't  you  think  so?  But  there  are  even 
stranger  things  to  tell;  things  that  would  almost  make  us 
believe  roots  have  what  in  human  beings  we  call  "presence 
of  mind."  That  is  to  say,  the  faculty  of  thinking  just  what 
to  do  when  something  happens  that  one  isn't  looking  for; 
when  the  house  takes  fire,  for  example,  or  the  baby  upsets 
the  ink. 

A   ROOT'S   WAY   OF   CROSSING  A   ROAD 

Take  the  case  of  tree  roots  crossing  a  country  road  for 
a  drink  of  water.    They  do  it  just  as  you  or  I  would,  I'll 


198    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

be  bound.  Just  suppose  you  and  I  were  roots  of  a  big  tree 
that  wanted  to  reach  the  moist  bank  of  a  stream,  and  there 
was  a  hard  road-bed  between.  We  can't  go  over  the  top, 
and  the  road-bed  is  so  hard  we  can't  go  straight  through 
on  our  natural  level  so  we'll  just  stoop  down  and  go  under, 
won't  we?  That's  exactly  what  the  roots  do.  They  dip 
down  until  they  get  under  the  hard-packed  soil,  and  then 
up  they  come  again  on  the  other  side  and  into  the  moist 
bank  they  started  for. 

The  roots  of  each  kind  of  plant  or  tree  have  their  natural 
level;  that's  one  reason,  as  we  know,  why  so  many  differ- 
ent kinds  of  plants — grass;  trees,  bushes,  and  things — get 
on  so  well  together  in  the  fields  and  woods.  The  tree  roots 
that  we  have  just  seen  crossing  the  road  only  went  down 
below  their  natural  level  because  they  had  to,  as  if  the 
tip  said: 

"This  soil  is  too  hard.  We  can  never  get  through.  Bend 
down !  Bend  down  ! " 

So  the  roots  bent  down  until  they  came  to  softer  soil, 
then  forward,  but  always  working  up  toward  their  natural 
level,  and  so  it  was  at  their  natural  level  they  came  out  on 
the  other  side. 

A  ROOT'S  STRANGE  ADVENTURE  WITH  A  SHOE 

But  here's  an  example  of  "presence  of  mind,"  that  no- 
body has  accounted  for.  A  good-sized  root,  working  along 
through  the  soil,  like  Little  Brother  Mole,  to  earn  its  board 
and  keep,  came  right  up  against  the  sole  of  somebody's 
old  shoe  that  had  got  buried  in  the  soil.  In  the  sole  were 
a  lot  of  holes  where  the  stitches  used  to  be.  The  root 
divided  into  many  parts,  and  many  of  these  smaller  roots 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS        199 


HOW  THE  RAG  BABIES  TELL  THE  FORTUNE  OF  THE  SEED  CORN 

In  what  is  popularly  called  "  the  Rag  Baby  Test "  the  seed  com  is  placed  on  squares  marked 
on  cloth  with  numbers  corresponding  to  the  numbered  ears.  Then  they  are  rolled  up  in 
one  of  those  moistened  rags  until  they  sprout. 

found  their  way  through  the  stitch  holes.  Then,  coming 
out  on  the  other  side,  these  little  roots  got  together  and 
travelled  on,  side  by  side ! 

Isn't  that  a  story  for  you?  But  there's  no  accounting 
for  it.  As  we  have  seen,  the  men  of  science  know  a  little 
bit  about  how  a  root  manages  to  turn  round  and  round 
and  away  from  the  light  and  so  on,  but  what  kind  of  ma- 


CS)  j  nUrnational  Harsuter  Company 

THIS  IS  THE  ANSWER 

The  seed  from  Ear  Xo.  12  came  out  beautifully,  didn't  it?  That  from  Ear  No.  13  looks 
as  if  they  were  superstitious  in  Corn  Land;  but  of  course  it  was  the  fault  of  the  seed  and  not 
of  the  number. 


chinery  or  process  is  it  that  could  tell  the  root  if  it  would 
split  up  into  little  threads  it  could  get  through  the  stitch 
holes  in  that  old  boot?  You  can't  imagine;  at  least,  no- 
body so  far  has  thought  how  it  was  done.  But  it's  all  true. 
We'll  find  the  story  and  a  lot  of  other  things  about  the 
ways  of  roots  in  one  of  the  books  we'll  get  acquainted  with 
when  we  come  to  the  "Hide  and  Seek." 

Here's  another  example  of  the  same  thing;  what  we 
have  called  "presence  of  mind,"  resourcefulness,  invention. 
This  example  is  even  more  striking,  if  possible,  because, 
for  one  thing,  it  is  a  case  where  roots  still  more  completely 
altered  their  habits  to  save  a  tree  struggling  for  its  life 
on  a  stony  mountain  cliff.  Maeterlinck  tells  about  it  in 
his  picturesque  and  dramatic  style.  The  subject — the 
hero,  as  it  were — of  this  story  was  a  laurel-tree  growing 
on  some  cliff  above  a  chasm  at  the  bottom  of  which  ran  a 
mountain  torrent. 

"It  was  easy  to  see  in  its  twisted  and,  so  to  say,  writhing  trunk, 
the  whole  drama  of  its  hard  and  tenacious  life.  The  young  stem 
had  started  from  a  vertical  plane,  so  that  its  top,  instead  of  rising 
toward  the  sky,  bent  down  over  the  gulf.  It  was  obliged,  there- 
fore, notwithstanding  the  weight  of  its  branches,  stubbornly  to 
bend  its  disconcerted  trunk  into  the  form  of  an  elbow  close  to  the 
rock,  and  thus,  like  a  swimmer  who  throws  back  his  head,  by  means  of 
an  incessant  will,  to  hold  the  heavy  leaves  straight  up  into  the  sky.'' 

This  bent  arm,  in  course  of  time,  struggling  with  wind 
and  storm,  grew  so  that  it  swelled  out  in  knots  and  cords, 
like  muscles  upholding  a  terrific  burden.  But  the  strain 
finally  proved  too  much.  The  tree  began  to  crack  at  the 
elbow  and  decay  set  in. 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS        201 

"The  leafy  dome  grew  heavier,  while  a  hidden  canker  gnawed 
deeper  into  the  tragic  arm  that  supported  it  in  space.  Then, 
obeying  I  know  not  what  order  of  instinct,  two  -stout  roots,  issuing 
from  the  trunk  at  some  considerable  distance  above  the  elbow, 
grew  out  and  moored  it  to  the  granite  wall." 

As  if  the  roots,  naturally  so  afraid  of  light,  had  heard  a 
frantic  call  for  help  and,  regardless  of  everything,  had 
come  to  the  rescue. 

To  be  sure,  certain  roots — the  prop-roots  of  corn-stalks, 
for  instance,  as  you  have  noticed — habitually  reach  from 
above  ground  down  into  the  soil,  and  serve  to  brace  the 
tall  stem  swaying  in  the  winds,  but  trees  usually  have  no 
such  roots  and  no  such  habits.  Yet,  here  a  tree  seems 
suddenly  to  have  learned,  somehow,  that  elsewhere  in  the 
land  of  plants  this  thing  is  done.  But  how  did  it  learn 
it?  Did  the  brownies  or  the  gnomes  tell  it;  or  was  it  some 
of  the  spirits  of  the  wind  that  go  everywhere  and  see  every- 
thing? It  might  have  been  the  same  wind  sprites  that 
carry  the  seeds  of  the  laurel  and  the  pine  so  far  up  the 
mountain  flanks.  Or  it  might  have  been  the  dryads,  those 
beautiful  creatures  of  the  wood  the  Greeks  knew  so  much 
about. 

I  tell  you  there  are  some  mighty  queer  things  going  on 
in  the  plant  world,  and  perhaps  Bud  was  right! 

"Some  peoples  thinks  they  ain't  no  Fairies  new, 
No  more  yet !     But  they  w,  I  bet ! " 

HIDE  AND   SEEK   IX   THE  LIBRARY 

And,  what  is  more,  real  Kve  fairies  have  been  found  right  down 
in  the  world  of  roots!  The  science  people  call  them  "Bacteria," 
but  what  of  that  ?  The  thing  about  a  fairy  that  makes  it  a  fairy 


202    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

is  that  it  is  always  changing  something  into  something  else.  Isn't 
that  right?  Well,  that's  exactly  what  is  done  by  the  bacteria  on 
the  roots  of  certain  kinds  of  plants — clover  roots,  for  one;  and  the 
roots  of  beans,  peas,  peanuts,  and  alfalfa.  These  plants  belong  to 
the  legume  family,  and  if  you  will  look  up  the  word  Legumes  you 
will  find  out  all  about  these  fairy  factories  on  the  roots. 

Among  other  things  you'll  learn  how  small  these  fairies  are. 
Why,  100,000  of  the  bacteria  that  live  on  clover  roots,  marching 
single  file,  wouldn't  much  more  than  reach  across  this  typed  page.1 
And  in  their  little  "villages"  on  one  system  of  clover  roots  there 
are  so  many  that  all  of  them  put  together  would  make  a  city  as  big 
as  London  or  New  York;  if  the  bacteria  were  as  big  as  people,  I 
mean. 

Of  course  you  have  to  take  a  microscope  to  see  them — a  very 
powerful  microscope — and  even  then  some  kinds  of  bacteria  you 
can't  see  until  you  put  colored  clothes  on  them.  (Every  high  school 
boy  who  has  worked  in  the  "lab"  knows  how  this  is  done.) 

And  when  you  finally  see  them,  a  strange  thing  happens.  You've 
hardly  got  your  eye  on  a  little  Mr.  Bacteria  before  he's  two ! 

" What's  this !     What's  this ! "  you  say.     "Am  I  seeing  double ? " 

You  look  again  and  he's  four  I  But  don't  be  alarmed,  you  aren't 
seeing  double;  it's  just  the  little  Mr.  Bacterias  multiplying  by  divi- 
sion. How  they  multiply  by  division  is  one  of  the  interesting  things 
you  can  learn  by  looking  them  up. 

But  it's  a  good  thing  that  the  bacteria  people  in  the  little  nitrogen 
factories  on  the  clover  roots  can  get  more  farm-hands  in  this  way, 
for  they  have  a  lot  to  do,  and  their  work  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing things  that  goes  on  about  the  place. 

The  article  in  the  "Country  Life  Reader"  on  "The  Smallest 
Plant  on  the  Farm"  will  tell  you  how  important  these  nitrogen 
farmers  are. 

You  would  hardly  believe  how  great  their  work  is,  they're  so 
quiet  about  it.  Do  you  know  what  a  human  nitrogen  factory  is 
like?  Well,  for  one  thing,  it's  the  noisiest  place  in  the  world.  •  Men, 
as  do  the  bacteria,  capture  the  nitrogen  out  of  the  air,  but  they  do 
it  by  keeping  up  continual  thunder  and  rain  storms  in  big  barrels. 

1  By  the  way,  the  funny  thing  is  that,  while  the  bacteria  that  live  on 
roots  of  the  legumes  are  plants  and  not  animals,  most  of  them  do 
move  about. 


THE  BUSY  FINGERS  OF  THE  ROOTS         203 

You  will  find  one  of  these  factories  described  in  an  article  in  St. 
Nicholas,  Volume  45,  page  1137. 

But  what  a  fuss  these  human  factories  make !  Why,  in  growing- 
time,  out  in  the  clover  field,  where  the  loudest  sound  you  hear  is 
the  drone  of  the  bumblebee  among  the  blossoms,  the  little  bacteria 
people  down  among  the  roots  are  making  nitrogen  so  much  cheaper 
than  the  big  noisy  factories  that  it  only  costs  the  farmer  about  one- 
fifth  as  much  as  the  storm-barrel  nitrogen.  And  yet,  of  course,  it 
often  pays  to  buy  the  artificial  nitrogen,  too. 

There  are  many  more  striking  things  about  the  habits  of  roots 
than  I  have  had  room  to  tell  about  here,  which  you  will  find  in 
such  books  as  Elliot's  "Romance  of  Plant  Life,"  Coulter's  "Plant 
Studies,"  Coulter's  "First  Book  of  Botany,"  Allen's  "Story  of  the 
Plants,"  Chase's  "Buds,  Stems  and  Roots,"  Atkinson's  "First 
Studies  of  Plant  Life,"  Darwin's  "Power  of  Movement  in  Plants," 
France's  "Germs  of  Mind  in  Plants,"  Gray's  "How  Plants  Be- 
have," Carpenter's  "Vegetable  Physiology,"  Detmer's  "Plant 
Physiology,"  and  Parsons's  "Plants  and  Their  Children." 


THANKSGIVING  DINNER  OF  THE  DORMICE 

They  don't  sit  at  the  dinner  table  like  that,  to  be  sure,  but  along  in  the  Fall  and  up  to 
nearly  the  time  of  our  Thanksgiving  dinners,  the  dormice  eat  unusually  heavy  meals  and 
put  fat  on  their  little  bones  to  help  them  through  the  long,  cold,  and  barren  months  of  winter. 


CHAPTER  XI 

(NOVEMBER) 

All-cheering  plenty,  with  her  flowing  horn 

Led  yellow  Autumn,  wreathed  with  nodding  corn. 

— Burns :  "Brigs  of  Ayr." 

There's  silence  in  the  harvest  field, 

And  blackness  in  the  mountain  glen, 
And  clouds  that  will  not  pass  away 
From  the  hill  tops  for  many  a  day; 

And  stillness  round  the  homes  of  men. 

— MaryHowitt:  "Winter.1' 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  AND  THE  LONG 
WINTER  NIGHT 

"When  the  caveman  was  still  living  from  hand  to  mouth; 
before  he  had  even  got  as  far  as  his  first  crooked  stick  for 
a  plough,  and  when  Mrs.  Cave  couldn't  have  canned  a 
bean  or  a  berry  to  save  her  life,  even  if  she  had  had  the 

204 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  205 

cans,  a  certain  little  farmer  already  knew  how  to  get  root 
crops  in  the  Fall  and  clean  them  and  cut  them  and  put 
them  away  in  his  little  barn  under  the  ground  for  Winter 
use. 

Several  of  these  forehanded  folk  we  have  already  met — 
the  beaver  and  the  chipmunk,  among  others — but  since 
we  are  now  at  the  end  of  the  harvest  year  I  thought  we 
might  spend  this  evening — the  last  but  one,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  that  we  shall  be  together — in  a  little  chat  about 
these  thrifty  brothers  of  the  wild,  and  how  some  of  them 
are  going  to  spend  the  long  Winter  that  begins  in  the  Au- 
tumn and  lasts  until  Spring. 

I.    LITTLE  GRANARIES  UNDER  THE  GROUND 

I  was  going  to  begin  by  saying  that  one  of  the  most  fore- 
handed of  them  all  has  six  feet,  but  as  that  would  be  al- 
most as  bad  as  a  pun,  I  decided  not  to.  You  would  have 
known,  of  course,  that  by  people  with  six  feet  I  meant  the 
insects. 

ANTS   THAT   THRESH  AND    STORE 

Among  the  six-legged  farmers,  you  may  be  sure,  there 
have  always  been  many  who  took  thought  for  the  mor- 
row— the  ants,  for  example.  One  can  believe  almost  any- 
thing of  ants.  If  that  sluggard  had  gone  to  the  ant,  as 
wise  King  Solomon  told  him  to,  and  learned  all  their  ways, 
he  would  have  found,  among  other  things,  how  one  species 
harvests  the  seeds  of  the  plant  known  as  the  "shepherd's- 
purse."  by  twisting  off  the  pods  with  its  hind  legs.  These 
members  of  the  ant  family  store  grains  of  oats,  nettle,  and 


206    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

other  plants.  They  pick  up  all  the  seeds  they  can  find  that 
the  Autumn  winds  have  already  threshed  for  them,  but 
they're  not  the  least  like  that  lazy  man  who  wouldn't  have 
the  corn  that  was  offered  by  kind  neighbors-  to  keep  him 
from  starving,  because  it  wasn't  shelled.  If  they  don't 
find  enough  seeds  on  the  ground  when  it  comes  time  to 
think  about  the  Winter  stores  they  climb  up  and  gather 
in  the  seeds  themselves.  On  the  shepherd's-purse,  for 
example,  the  ant  climbs  up,  selects  a  well-filled  pod  which 


••'  -— m ^ — ,• '         _  _TTT       ~^-~— -y  4-  — . 

HOW  THE  ANTS  WORK  IN  DIGGING  OUT  THEIR  GRANARIES 

is  not  sufficiently  dried  to  have  had  its  seeds  threshed  out 
by  the  winds,  takes  the  pod  in  its  little  jaws  and  then — 
watch  him — turns  round  and  round  on  his  hind  legs  until 
he  twists  it  off !  Then  with  it  he  carefully  moves  down  the 
stem,  like  a  baggageman  carrying  a  big  trunk  from  the 
third  apartment;  only  the  baggageman  carries  the  trunk 
in  front  of  him  or  on  his  shoulders,  while  the  ant  backs  his 
way  down.  Sometimes  two  ants  work  together,  one  twist- 
ing, the  other  cutting  away  the  fibres  with  its  teeth.  Some- 
times they  drop  the  pods  to  companions  waiting  below, 
and  these  other  helpers  never  run  off  with  it,  but  carry  it 
to  the  common  granary;  for  ants  always  play  fair. 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES 


207 


sv-OS  ^;^ 

^  ^t?^l^2j( 


THE  INSIDE  OF  THE  GRANARY 

Underneath  the  dome  of  the  ant  house  you  see  in  the  previous  picture,  are  flat  chambers 
like  these,  connected  by  galleries,  in  which  the  grain  is  stored.  One  is  prepared  not  to  be 
surprised  at  anything  about  ants,  but  listen  to  this:  The  Agricultural  Ants  not  only  gather 
and  store  this  grain,  but  they  actually  plant  and  cultivate  it.  They  sow  it  before  the  wet 
season  in  the  Fall,  keep  it  weeded,  and  gather  it  in  June  of  the  following  year.  Seems  in- 
credible, doesn't  it?  But  I'm  only  telling  you  what  McCook,  an  ant  student,  recognized 
everywhere  as  a  reliable  observer,  saw  these  six-footed  Texas  farmers  actually  do. 

And  they  have  granaries,  these  ant  farmers — hundreds 
of  them,  made  just  for  that,  each  about  the  size  of  father's 
watch. 

Now  here's  a  thing;  you  stow  away  a  lot  of  seeds  in  a 
little  hill  where,  of  course,  there's  moisture,  and  what's 
going  to  happen?  Those  seeds  are  going  to  sprout  and 
grow  and  spoil,  and  this,  of  course,  destroys  their  value 


208    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

as  food.  Then  what  are  you  going  to  do?  Of  course,  a 
human  farmer  would  put  his  grains  in  a  dry  granary  where 
they  couldn't  sprout,  but  you  see  the  ants  haven't  any 
granary  of  that  sort;  nothing  but  those  little  holes  in  the 


CLEANING  UP  AFTER  THE  DAY'S  WORK 

While  the  Agricultural  Ants  don't  take  a  bath  after  the  day's  work  they  do  the  next  best 
thing.  They  give  each  other  a  kind  of  massage,  and  they  evidently  find  it  very  enjoyable. 
You  know  how  the  cat  loves  to  be  stroked,  dogs  and  horses  to  be  patted,  and  little  pigs  to 
have  their  backs  scratched.  The  ants  below  are  giving  each  other  a  massage  (left,  abdomen; 
right,  legs  and  sides) .  The  lady  above  who  seems  to  be  braiding  her  back  hair,  is  cleaning 
her  antennae. 

moist  ground.  Just  what  they  do  to  these  seeds  has  not 
been  discovered.  They  do  something  that  keeps  them 
from  either  spoiling  or  sprouting.  But,  when  they  get 
ready  for  these  seeds  to  grow,  they  let  them  grow;  not  so 
that  they  can  raise  a  crop,  but  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  Chinaman  lets  the  barley  sprout  that  he  uses  in  mak- 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  209 

ing  chop-suey;  so  that  it  will  be  nice  and  soft  to  eat.  This 
growing  digests  the  starch  in  the  seeds  into  sugar.  When 
the  sprouts  have  grown  as  far  as  the  ants  want  them  to, 
they  gnaw  the  stalk  a  little,  and  cut  off  the  roots  with  their 
mandibles.  When  this  sugar-making  has  gone  on  long 
enough  the  ants  bring  all  the  plants  out  into  the  sun  and 
let  them  lie  there  until  they  are  nice  and  dry.  Then  they 
put  them  in  their  barns,  and  as  long  as  Winter  lasts  they 
live  on  this  sweet  flour,  grinding  it  in  their  mouth  mills 
as  they  go  along. 

Why,  it's  like  living  on  cookies,  almost !  Only  the  ants 
have  been  used  to  this  steady  diet  of  sweets  for  ages,  and 
it  doesn't  hurt  their  little  stomachs  as  it  would  ours. 

This  particular  kind  of  a  farming  ant  is  called  the  Atta- 
bara,  but  there's  another  kind  more  wonderful  still.  If 
we  want  to  call  on  them  by  their  scientific  names — these 
remarkable  little  creatures  I'm  going  to  tell  about  now — 
we'll  have  to  go  to  Texas  and  ask  if  the  Pogononyrmex 
barbatus  family  are  at  home. 

"Oh,  to  be  sure,"  says  the  gentleman  who  first  intro- 
duced them  to  scientific  society,1  "just  come  with  me." 

So  he  takes  us  over  into  Texas  and  shows  us  the  ants 
at  work.  They  destroy  every  plant  on  their  little  farms 
except  that  known  as  ant-rice.  Compared  to  the  size  of 
the  ants  themselves,  these  grain-fields  are  giant  forests, 
far  bigger  than  the  Sequoia  Forests  of  California.  The 
ants  watch  for  rain  at  harvest-time  as  anxiously  as  a  farm- 
er, and  on  the  first  sunny  day,  they  do  their  cutting  and 
hurry  the  grain  into  the  barn.  Then  on  later  sunny  days, 
they  bring  it  out  to  dry  before  finally  storing  it  away. 
1  Rev.  H.  S.  McCook:  "The  Agricultural  Ant  of  Texas." 


210    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

"Well,"  you  say,  "is  there  anything  left  that  these 
farmers  don't  do?" 

I  can't  think  of  anything  except  the  planting.  One  ob- 
server says  that  they  do  actually  plant  the  seeds,  and  Doc- 
tor McCook  says,  he  wouldn't  be  surprised  if  they  did, 
but  he  never  saw  them  do  it. 

In  tropical  America  there  is  a  species  of  ant  that  raises 
"mushrooms";  at  least  a  kind  of  fungus  that  passes  for 
mushrooms  with  the  ants.  They  don't  exactly  set  the 
mushrooms  out,  but  they  save  time  by  planting  both  the 
mushrooms  and  the  leaves  that  make  them  as  one  and  the 
same  job.  This  is  how  they  do  it.  They  climb  the  trees, 
cut  circular  pieces  of  leaf  with  their  scissor-like  jaws  and 
carry  them  back  to  low,  wide  mounds  in  the  neighborhood 
of  which  they  allow  nothing  to  grow;  the  purpose  being, 
as  it  is  supposed,  to  ventilate  the  galleries  of  their  homes 
by  keeping  a  clear  space  about  the  mound. 

HOW   THE   ANTS   RAISE   MUSHROOMS 

The  leaves  are  used  as  a  fertilizer  on  which  grow  a  small 
species  of  mushrooms.  The  leaves  are  first  left  out  to  be 
dampened  by  the  ram,  and  are  carried  into  the  ants'  cellars 
before  they  are  quite  dry.  In  very  dry  weather  the  ants 
work  only  during  the  cool  of  the  day  and  at  night.  Occa- 
sionally inexperienced  ants  bring  in  grass  or  unsuitable 
leaves,  but  these  are  carried  out  and  thrown  away  by  older 
members  of  the  family.  But  you  see  how  valuable  all  these 
leaves  are  to  the  soil. 

MR.  HAMSTER'S  THRESHING  HARVESTER 

Of  course,  we  always  expect  the  ants  to  do  extraordinary 
things,  but  one  of  those  four-legged  farmers  I  mentioned 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES 


211 


in  the  beginning  of  the  chapter  anticipated  the  principle 
of  the  very  latest  type  of  threshing-machine.  It's  a  fact. 
This  remarkable  little  animal  threshing-machine  is  called 
the  hamster.  He  is  found  in  Europe  east  of  the  Rhine  and 
in  certain  portions  of  Asia.  He  does  both  his  cutting  and 
threshing  in  his  field;  something  the  Gauls  did  in  the  days 
of  the  Romans  in  a  crude  way,  but  which  men  of  our  day 
have  only  got  to  doing  in  recent  years.  He  pulls  down  the 


ANTS  CARRYING  LEAVES  FOR  THE  MUSHROOM  CELLAR 

You'd  never  guess  what  the  ants  are  going  to  do  with  those  leaves !     Read  what  it  says 
on  this  page  about  these  six-legged  epicures. 


wheat  ear,  cuts  it  off  between  his  teeth,  and  then  threshes 
it  by  drawing  the  heads  through  his  mouth.  The  grain 
falls  right  into  sacks  as  fast  as  it  is  threshed;  just  as  it 
does  in  those  huge,  combined  reapers  and  threshers  that 
you  see  on  our  big  wheat  farms.  Mr.  Hamster's  sacks 
are  his  cheek-pouches,  one  on  each  side.  When  these  are 
filled,  this  little  threshing-machine  turns  itself  into  an  auto, 


212     THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

a  commercial  truck,  and  off  it  goes  with  its  load  of  wheat 
to  the  little  barn  hidden  in  the  ground.  These  cheek- 
pouches,  by  the  way,  reach  from  the  hamster's  cheeks 
clear  back  to  his  shoulders,  and  both  of  these  pouches  will 
together  hold  something  like  a  thousand  grains  of  wheat. 
He  empties  them  by  holding  his  paws  tight  against  the 
side  of  his  face  and  then  pushing  forward.  Rather  a  clever 
unloading  device,  too;  don't  you  think  so?  Just  as  good 
for  Mr.  Hamster's  purposes  as  the  endless-chain  system 
at  the  Buffalo  grain  elevator  that  Mr.  Kipling  admired 
so  much. 

And  in  the  mere  matter  of  the  amount  of  grain  handled, 
the  work  of  the  hamster  is  not  to  be  laughed  at.  The  peas- 
ant farmers  are  very  glad  to  find  a  hamster  granary,  which, 
of  course,  they  promptly  take  possession  of  by  due  process 
of  law: 

"The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan 

That  they  shall  take  who  have  the  power, 

And  they  shall  hold  who  can." 

One  of  Mr.  Hamster's  neighbors,  the  field-rat  of  Hun- 
gary and  Asia,  stores  his  grain  right  in  the  house — the 
place  where  he  lives  with  his  family.  Mr.  Hamster,  how- 
ever, has  his  barns  separate  from  his  home.  Sometimes  he 
has  one,  sometimes  two;  and  the  older  members  of  the 
community  may  have  four  or  five. 

II.    MR.  VOLE  AND  His  ROOT  CELLAR 

The  farmer  I  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
who  is  so  thrifty  about  his  root  crops  and  so  neat,  belongs 
to  the  Vole  family.  He  lives  away  over  in  Siberia  and  his 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES 


213 


full  name  is  Arvicola  economus.  In  gathering  his  crop  of 
roots,  he  first  digs  a  little  trench  around  them  and  lays 
them  bare.  Then  he  cleans  them  off  nicely  so  as  not  to 
fill  his  storehouse  with  dirt;  cuts  them  up  in  sizes  con- 


THE  OLD  HOME  PLACE 

This  is  the  farm  of  some  Agricultural  Ants  in  Texas.  See  the  granary  and  the  roads  lead- 
ing to  it?  They  collect  and  store  the  seeds  of  a  plant  which  from  this  fact  is  called  "ant- 
rice."  It  looks  like  oats  and  tastes  like  rice.  All  plants  growing  around  the  nest — which  is 
also  called  the  granary — the  ants  cut  away,  so  clearing  a  space  for  10  or  12  feet.  Roads  5 
inches  broad  near  the  nest,  but  narrowing  as  they  recede,  are  made  for  hundreds  of  feet  in 
different  directions. 

venient  for  carrying,  and  then  hauls  them  home  and  piles 
them  up  in  lit'tle  cellars  made  specially  for  them. 

He  only  takes  one  piece  at  a  tune,  walking  along  back- 
ward and  pulling  it  after  him  with  his  teeth.  He  travels 
long  distances  in  this  fashion,  going  around  tufts  of  grass, 
stones,  and  logs  that  lie  in  the  way.  When  he  gets  home, 
he  backs  in  the  front  door  and  into  the  living-room,  and 
then  into  the  barns  which  are  back  of  the  living-room. 


214    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

There  are  several  of  these  and  they  are  at  the  end  of  a  long 
crooked  passage. 

Some  of  the  Vole  family  make  a  specialty  of  wheat.  One 
species  of  these  wheat  harvesters  used  to  be  common  in 
Greece.  He  made  such  a  nuisance  of  himself — from  the 
Greek  farmer's  standpoint — that  the  Greeks  had  a  special 
god  to  get  after  him;  Apollo  Myoktonos,  "Apollo,  De- 
stroyer of  Mice."  1  For  the  vole  is  just  a  kind  of  field- 
mouse..  The  runs  of  these  wheat-harvesting  voles  are  eight 
to  twelve  inches  below  the  ground,  and  are  connected  with 
the  surface  by  vertical  holes.  The  end  of  the  run  is  en- 
larged into  a  big  room  for  the  nest,  and  there  are  special 
rooms  leading  from  the  main  runway  that  are  used  for  the 
storing  of  the  grain.  These  voles  do  their  harvesting  in 
the  evening.  Standing  on  their  hind  legs  and  holding  to 
the  stock  with  their  little  paws  as  a  beaver  clasps  a  tree, 
they  cut  off  the  wheat  head  with  their  teeth.  They  work 
very  fast. 

HOW  DID   THESE   FARMERS   LEARN   TO    STORE? 

Neither  the  voles  nor  any  other  of  these  interesting 
farmers  and  warehousemen  used  to  get  much  credit  for 
what  they  did.  The  fact  that  they  helped  themselves  to 
some  of  the  good  things  of  earth  annoyed  Man,  of  course, 
and  then,  when  it  came  to  the  matter  of  intelligence,  con- 
ceited Mr.  Man  said:  "Oh,  that's  just  instinct."  But  nowa- 
days when  scientists  have  begun  to  study  to  find  out  what 
"instinct"  really  is,  it  is  thought  that  man's  brother  ani- 

1  Strictly  speaking,  I  presume  this  was  the  same  Apollo  who  carried 
the  sun  about  in  his  chariot,  and  "Destroyer  of  Mice"  was  one  of  his 
many  nicknames. 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  215 

mals,  although  they  are  born  with  more  knowledge  of  how 
to  do  things — with  more  of  what  we  call  "instinct" — have 
also  learned  by  experience  just  as  man  did.  It  is  argued 
that  the  storing  habit  was  forced  on  animals  wherever  the 
climate  cut  off  the  food-supply  for  a  time — either  because 
it  was  too  cold  or  too  hot.  The  idea  of  putting  something 
by  for  a  rainy  day  appealed  particularly  to  the  burrowers 
because  they  are  a  timid  lot.  Not  being  able  to  defend 
themselves  very  well  against  their  enemies  they  were 
obliged  to  pack  up  what  they  could  and  hurry  to  some 
hidden  eating-place.  That  is  where  the  cheek-pouches, 
which  many  of  them  have,  come  in  handy.  They  are  also 
very  industrious,  and  as  the  seeds  and  nuts  on  which  they 
lived  began  to  ripen,  they  just  couldn't  resist  the  impulse 
to  gather  and  gather  and  gather  more  than  they  could 
possibly  eat  at  the  time.  So,  as  a  result  of  this  habit,  food 
piled  up  in  their  underground  homes.  Then,  as  they  were 
kept  indoors  by  cold  weather  qr  by  their  enemies,  they 
took  to  eating  more  and  more  from  the  pantry  shelf,  and 
thus  the  members  of  the  family  that  were  the  busiest  and, 
therefore,  had  the  most  to  eat  would  naturally  survive  and 
leave  children  of  a  similar  disposition,  while  the  less  thrifty 
would  die  off. 

III.    THE  LONG  WINTER  SLEEP 

Some  of  these  forehanded  people,  instead  of  putting 
their  Winter  supply  of  food  in  the  ground,  put  it  on  their 
bones.  That  is  to  say,  before  turning  in  for  the  Winter, 
they  get  as  fat  as  can  be  and  then  live  on  this  fat 
until  Spring.  A  great  advantage  of  this  system  of  storage 


216    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

is  that  it  is  particularly  pleasant  work — you  eat  and  eat 
and  enjoy  your  meals,  that's  all'.  Another  advantage  is 
that  you  can't  be  robbed  of  your  store,  as  easily  as  the 
hamster,  for  example,  frequently  is.  You  carry  it  right 
with  you  wherever  you  go. 

There  are  a  lot  of  curious  things  about  this  hibernation. 


LITTLE  HEDGEHOG  IN  MAN'S  HAND 

Not  only  will  warmth  arouse  the  sleepers  but  also  extreme 
cold,  and  after  the  extreme  cold  may  come  another  sleep 
from  which  the  sleepers  never  awaken;  in  other  words, 
too  much  cold  kills  them.  So  the  object  of  burying  one's 
self  as  the  ground-hog  does,  or  under  the  snow  as  rabbits 
do,  or  in  hollow  caves  and  trees  as  Brer  Bear  does,  is  to'keep 
from  getting  too  cold.  Sometimes  two  or  more  "bunk" 
together,  as  little  pigs  do  on  cold  March  days.  The  body 
of  each  helps  to  keep  his  bedfellows  warm. 

IT'S   THE   COLD   THAT   MAKES   ONE   DROWSY 

It  is  the  cold  itself  that  seems  to  make  hibernating  ani- 
mals feel  sleepy;  just  as  it  does  human  beings.    At  a  moder- 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES 


217 


A  HEDGEHOG  AND  HER  BABIES 


ate  temperature,  say  45  or  50  degrees,  dormice  and  hedge- 
hogs will  wake  up,  eat  something,  and  then  go  to  sleep 
again.  The  dormouse  usually  wakes  in  every  twenty-four 
hours,  while  the  hedgehog's  Winter  naps  are  two  or  three 
days  long.  Hunger  seems  to  be  the  cause  of  their  waking, 
just  as  it  is  with  babies.  The  little  dormouse,  as  the  air 
grows  colder,  gradually  dozes  off,  and  his  breathing  is  very 
deep  and  slow.  As  the  temperature  rises,  he  begins  to  take 
shorter  and  more  rapid  breaths  and  gradually  wakes  up. 
Then,  if  he  is  in  his  own  little  home  under  the  ground,  he 


2i8    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

feeds  on  the  nuts  and  other  foods  that  he  stored  in  Autumn 
and  drops  off  again.  He  sleeps  from  five  to  seven  months, 
depending  on  the  weather. 

Moles  and  shrews,  so  far  as  observation  goes,  don't 
hibernate.  The  moles  simply  dig  deeper,  and  there  they 
find  worms  and  insects  that  are  buried  away  from  the  reach 
of  frost.  The  shrews  hunt  spiders  and  hundred-legged 
worms  and  larvae  in  holes  and  crannies  of  the  soil  or  be- 
neath leaves  of  ground  plants  and  old  logs. 

A  queer  thing  is  that  the  hedgehog,  which  belongs  to 
the  same  family  as  the  shrew  and  the  mole,  is  dead  to  the 
world  all  Winter.  Like  all  complete  hibernators  he  stops 
breathing  entirely.  The  reason  for  this  difference  between 
the  hedgehog  and  the  mole  is  that  the  mole  doesn't  need 
to  go  to  sleep,  because  he  digs  below  the  frost-line.  As  for 
the  shrews,  they  have  little  bodies  and  are  very  active,  and 
so  get  themselves  food  and  keep  warm,  while  the  hedgehog 
is  so  much  bigger  and  slower  that,  when  there  is  so  little 
to  eat  and  it  is  so  cold,  he  would  either  freeze  or  starve 
to  death  if  he  went  about  looking  for  food.  He  finds  it 
cheaper  to  turn  in  and  sleep  than  to  work. 

None  of  the  tree-squirrels  seem  to  take  any  unusually 
long  naps  in  the  Winter.  We  often  see  them  around  on 
pleasant  days  in  the  parks  and  in  the  woods.  They  run 
out,  get  a  few  nuts  from  their  stores,  and  then  back  again 
to  their  nests,  but  the  chipmunks  and  the  gophers,  who 
are  closely  related  to  the  squirrels,  stay  from  late  Autumn 
to  Spring  in  their  burrows,  where  they  have  plenty  of  food 
stowed  away,  and  they  sleep  most  of  the  time.  In  the 
home  of  four  chipmunks  was  found  a  pint  of  wheat,  a 
quart  of  nuts,  a  peck  of  acorns,  and  two  quarts  of  buck- 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  219 

wheat,  besides  a  lot  of  corn  and  grass  seed;  all  to  feed 
four  fat  chipmunks.  So,  with  such  plentiful  supplies,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  after  their  long  Winter  sleep  the  chip- 
munks are  as  sleek  as  can  be  and  as  fat  as  butter,  while 
Mr.  Bear  comes  out  in  the  Spring  lean  and  with  his  hair 
all  mussed  up  and  as  hungry  as — well,  as  hungry  as  a  bear ! 
All  the  bear  family,  except  the  polar  bears,  retire  to  caves 
or  some  sheltered  spot  under  a  ledge  of  a  rock  or  the  roots 
of  a  big  tree.  Among  the  polar  bears  the  rule  seems  to 
be  that  it's  Mamma  Bear  only  who  goes  to  bed  for  the  Win- 
ter. She  is  careful  to  put  on  enough  fat  not  only  for  her- 
self, but  so  that  the  babies  that  come  along  in  the  Spring 
will  have  plenty  of  milk.  She  is  buried  by  snow  that  drifts 
on  her  and  her  breath  melts  a  funnel  up  to  the  fresh  air. 

IV.    MR.  GROUND-HOG  AND  His  SHADOW 

The  woodchuck,  like  the  bear,  is  a  "meat-packer." 
People  talk  about  him  more  or  less  in  February.  His  other 
name  is  "ground-hog"  and  his  shadow  is  quite  as  famous 
as  he  is.  But  is  there  anything  in  that  old  weather  saw? 
W^ell,  yes  and  no.  You  see,  it's  like  this:  Mr.  Ground-Hog 
goes  to  bed  very  early  hi  the  Fall — long  before  the  cold 
weather  sets  in — and  so  he  is  up  very  early  the  next  Spring; 
long  before  the  snow  is  all  gone  and,  as  it  is  with  the  other 
all- Winter  sleepers,  a  little  extra  warmth  may  wake  him 
up.  Along  toward  morning,  you  know,  we  all  begin  to 
stir  around  in  our  beds  and  get  half  awake.  So  in  addi- 
tion to  the  fact  that  it  is  nearly  daybreak  for  him — that 
is  to  say,  Springtime — let  there  come  along  a  bright,  warm 
day  in  February — the  second  is  as  good  as  any  other — 


220    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

and  Mr.  Ground-Hog  is  likely  to  come  out  of  his  hole.  And, 
if  he  does,  of  course  he  will  see  his  shadow,  after  which 
there  is  likely  to  be  quite  a  lot  of  cold  weather. 

HOW  WEATHER  AVERAGES   UP 

Not  that  his  shadow  makes  any  difference,  but  the  point 
is  that  if  you  have  much  warm  weather  early  in  February 
you  are  likely  to  have  colder  weather  later  and  running  on 
into  March.  It's  just  the  law  of  averages,  that's  all.  You 
see  it  running  through  the  year — this  averaging  up  of 
weather;  it  just  sways  back  and  forth  like  a  pendulum. 
Take  it  in  any  storm  of  rain  or  snow;  first  the  clear  sky, 
then  the  clouds,  then  the  downfall,  and  after  that  flie  clear 
sky  again.  Take  any  month  as  a  whole,  or  a  year  as 
a  whole,  and  it's  the  same  way;  you  get  about  so  much 
rain,  so  much  sunshine,  so  much  heat  and  cold.  The  United 
States  Weather  Bureau  went  to  work  once  and,  from  the 
records,  classified  the  storms  for  the  last  thirty  years,  and 
they  found  that  about  fifteen  storms  each  year  start  over 
the  region  of  the  West  Gulf  States,  twelve  begin  over*  the 
mountains  of  Colorado,  forty  cross  the  country  from  the 
North  Pacific  by  way  of  Washington  and  Oregon;  and 
so  on,  just  about  so  many  from  each  region  each  year. 

And  records  and  old  diaries,  going  back  a  hundred  years, 
show  that  the  longer  the  period  you  examine  for  weather 
facts,  the  closer  the  average.  The  weather  for  one  ten- 
year  period  will  be  almost  as  much  like  any  ot^ier  ten-year 
period,  as  the  peas  in  a  pea  shell  are  like  each  other.  Com- 
ing back  to  the  subject  of  February  weathe'r,  we  find  in 
the  diary  of  an  old  resident  of  Philadelphia  in  1779:  "The 
Winter  was  mild,  and  particularly  the  month  of  February, 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES 


221 


MR.  GROUND-HOG  AND  HIS  SHADOW 

"  But  is  there  anything  in  the  old  weather  saw?  Well,  yes  and  no.  Mr.  Ground-Hog  goes 
to  bed  early  in  the  Fall  and  is  up  early  next  Spring.  Let  there  come  a  bright,  warm  day  in 
February — the  second  is  as  good  as  any — and  Mr.  G.-H.  is  likely  to  come  out  and  see  his 
shadow.  And  if  you  have  warm  weather  early  in  February  you  are  likely  to  have  colder 
weather  later.  It's  the  law  of  averages,  that's  all." 


when  trees  were  in  bloom."  He  doesn't  say  anything  about 
the  ground-hog,  but  there  is  this  to  be  said  of  the  sharper 
changes  of  February  and  March,  that  at  this  season  the 
earth  is  getting  more  and  more  warmed  up  and  yet  the 
cold  winds  from  the  North  don't  like  to  go;  so  there  is  a 
constant  wrestling-match,  and  it  is  the  wrestling  of  the 
winds  one  way  and  another  that  brings  the  changes  of  the 
weather.  So  if  the  South  Winds  get  the  best  of  it  early 
in  February,  the  North  Winds,  with  their  cold  weather, 
are  likely  to  win  later  in  the  month,  and  vice  versa. 
Moreover,  if  you  believe  in  the  ground-hog  proverb  you 
are  apt  to  notice  the  warm  days  (or  cold  days,  as  the  case 
may  be)  for  the  next  six  weeks  after  February  2,  and  you 
won't  notice  so  much  the  weather  that  doesn't  fit  your 
proverb!  It's  a  way  we  all  have;  seeing  the  things  that 
go  to  prove  what  we  believe  and  overlooking  the  things 
that  don't. 

HIDE  AND   SEEK  IN  THE  LIBRARY 

I  don't  care  what  it  says  in  "Alice  in  Wonderland,"  dormice 
never  drink  tea;  although  dormice  have  been  at  table  with  people 
ever  since  the  days  of  the  Romans.  Dormice  are  still  eaten  in  some 
parts  of  Europe,  and  the  Romans  used  to  keep  them  as  part  of 
their  live  stock.  The  European  dormouse  is  really  a  little  squirrel. 
Varro's  "Roman  Farm  Management"  (of  which  you  are  apt  to 
find  a  good  translation  in  the  public  library)  tells  how  the  Romans 
put  their  dormice  in  clay  jars  specially  made,  "with  paths  contrived 
on  the  side  and  a  hollow  to  hold  their  food." 

Crocodiles  and  other  tropical  animals  take  very  long  naps  during 
the  hottest  weather.  Hart  wig's  "Harmonies  of  Nature"  tells 
about  an  officer  who  was  asleep  in  a  tent  in  the  tropics,  when  his 
bed  moved  under  him,  and  he  found  it  was  because  a  crocodile, 
in  the  earth  beneath,  was  just  waking  up !  Imagine  what  the 
dried-up  ponds  and  streams  of  the  llanos  of  South  America  must 


THE  AUTUMN  STORES  223 

look  like  when  the  rainy  season  comes  on,  after  the  dry  spell,  with 
crocodiles  asleep  just  under  the  surface  everywhere.  Doctor  Hart- 
wig's  book  tells. 

But  the  most  remarkable  -case  of  drying  up  that  ever  I  heard 
of  was  that  of  the  Egyptian  snail  in  the  British  Museum,  that 
Woodward  tells  about  in  his  "Manual  of  the  Mollusca."  This 
snail  was  sent  to  England,  simply  as  a  shell,  in  1846.  Never  dream- 
ing there  was  anybody  at  home,  they  glued  him  to  a  piece  of  card- 
board, marked  it  Helix  Desertorum,  and  there  he  stuck  until  March 
7,  1850,  when  somebody  discovered  a  certain  thing  that  indicated 
that  there  was  somebody  "at  home,"  and  that  he  was  alive.  They 
gave  him  a  warm  bath  and  he  opened  his  four  eyes  on  the  world ! 

In  his  "Animal  and  Vegetable  Hedgehogs"  ("Nature's  Work 
Shop")  Grant  Allen  tells  why  the  hedgehog  works  at  night  and 
sleeps  in  the  daytime. 

How  he  fastens  on  his  winter  overcoat  of  leaves,  using  his  spines 
for  pins,  and  how  funny  it  makes  him  look. 

How  Mother  Nature  manages  to  have  breakfast  ready  for  him 
in  the  Spring  just  when  he  is  ready  for  it. 

How  hedgehogs  use  their  spines  when  they  want  to  get  down 
from  a  high  bank  or  precipice  real  quickly. 

How  their  eyes  tell  how  smart  they  are;  for  a  hedgehog  is  smart. 

You  will  also  find  interesting  things  about  hibernation  in  Gould's 
' Mother  Nature's  Children"  and  Richard's  "Four  Feet,  Two  Feet 
and  No  Feet." 

In  one  of  his  essays  on  nature  topics — "Seven  Year  Sleepers "- 
Grant  Allen  tells  how  the  toad  goes  to  bed  in  an  earthenware  pot, 
which  he  makes  for  himself,  and  how  this  habit  may  have  helped 
start  the  story  that  live  toads  are  found  inside  of  stones. 

Ingersoll,  in  that  delightful  book  I  have  already  referred  to  sev- 
eral times,  "The  Wit  of  the  Wild,"  calls  the  pikas  "the  haymakers 
of  the  snow  peaks."  In  his  article  on  these  interesting  little 
creatures,  he  tells  why  you  may  often  be  looking  right  at  one  and 
still  not  see  it;  why  the  pikas  gather  bouquets  and  why  they  always 
lay  them  out  in  the  hot  sun;  why  their  harvest  season  only  lasts 
about  two  weeks,  and  why,  although  they  usually  go  to  bed  at 
sunset,  they  work  far  into  the  night  in  harvest  time. 

"The  Country  Life  Reader"  has  a  good  story  of  a  woodchuck 
named  "Tommy."  Among  other  things  it  tells  about  the  variety 
of  residences  a  woodchuck  has;  and  why  animals  that  work  at  night, 


224    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

as  all  woodchucks  do,  have  an  unusually  keen  sense  of  smell.     Can 
you  guess  why?     The  reason  is  simple  enough. 

Here's  a  clever  bit  of  verse  about  the  woodchuck  by  his  other 
name,  that  I  came  across  in  some  newspaper: 

"The  festive  groundhog  wakes  to-day, 

And  with  reluctant  roll, 
He  waddles  up  his  sinuous  way 

And  pops  forth  from  his  hole. 
He  rubs  his  little  blinking  eyes, 

So  heavy  from  long  sleep, 
That  he  may  read  the  tell-tale  skies — 

Which  is  it — wake  or  sleep  ?  " 

IngersolTs  "Nature's  Calendar"  tells  why  Brer  Bear  stays  up 
all  winter  when  there  is  plenty  of  food,  but  goes  to  bed  if  food  is 
scarce;  how  he  uses  roots  of  a  fallen  tree  to  help  when  he  is  digging 
his  winter  house;  how  he  makes  his  bed  and  what  he  uses  for  the 
purpose;  how  the  winds  help  him  put  on  his  roof,  and  how  he  locks 
himself  in  so  tight  that  he  can't  get  out  until  spring,  even  if  he 
wants  to. 


'IT  MUST  BE  BRER  BEAR!" 


CHAPTER  XII 

(DECEMBER) 

While  man  exclaims  "See  all  things  for  my  use !" 
"See  man  for  mine  !"  replies  the  pampered  goose. 

— Pope:  "Essay  on  Man." 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF   THE   DUST 

But  whether  they  store  it  in  their  little  barns,  like  the 
chipmunk,  or  on  their  bones,  like  Brer  Bear,  these  farmers 
deserve  more  friendly  understanding  than  they  usually  get 
from  that  two-legged  farmer,  Mr.  Man. 

Just  think  of  the  ages  upon  ages  that  they  have  been 
at  work,  these  humble  brothers  of  ours,  and  their  ancestors 

225 


226    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

—making  the  soil  that  gives  us  food — and  yet  after  all 
this  Mr.  Man  comes  along  and  says: 
"Get  out  of  my  fields!" 

I.    THE  LORD  OF  CREATION 

"Oh,  but — please  Mr.  Man — we  were  here  first!1' 
Was  that  the  dormouse  speaking?  Anyhow,  whoever 
it  was,  I  think  he  was  more  than  half  right,  don't  you? 
Mr.  Man,  when  he  complains  of  these  people,  is  apt  not 
only  to  forget  what  he  owes  to  them  but  in  claiming  that 
what  they  eat  is  wasted,  to  forget  what  a  waster  he  is  him- 
self— wasting  the  soil  and  wasting  the  trees  and  every- 
thing. 

BRER   BEAR   GIVES   MR.    MAN   A   PIECE    OF   HIS   MIND 

"Now  just  don't  you  overdo  this  Lord-of-Creation 
business,  Mr.  Man,"  says  a  deep,  growly  voice.  (It  must 
be  Brer  Bear !)  "Other  people  have  rights  as  well  as  you  ! 
And  if  you'd  tend  to  your  work  half  as  well  as  they've  at- 
tended to  theirs,  for  ages  before  you  were  born,  this  would 
be  a  better  world  to  live  in;  a  good  deal  better,  and  there'd 
be  a  lot  more  of  the  good  things  of  life  to  go  around. 

"And  now  that  you've  waked  me  up  I'm  going  to  tell 
you  something  else.  You  human  beings  are  not  only  a 
hard  lot,  but  a  stupid  lot.  You  think  you're  mighty  smart, 
don't  you,  with  your  bear-traps  and  your  shooting  ma- 
chines that  you  shoot  each  other  with,  as  well  as  shoot- 
ing the  rest  of  us !  But  do  you  know  what  7  think  ?  I 
think  if  some  of  us — the  bears  or  the  beavers  or  the  ants, 
for  example — had  had  half  your  chance  they'd  have  been 


THE  BROTHERHOOD  OF  THE  DUST    227 

twice  as  smart;  and  then  we  bears  might  have  gone  around 
shooting  at  you,  the  way  Mr.  Beard  showed  once  in  one 
of  those  funny  pictures  of  his." 

You  see,  Brer  Bear  has  a  good  tongue  in  his  head  as  well 
as  a  wise  old  head  on  his  shoulders,  and  I  must  say  he's 
entirely  right  when  he  makes  the  statement  that  human 


HUNTING  THAT  DOESN'T  HURT 

Hunting  with  a  gun  is  great  sport.  But  now  you  know  from  my  story  what  good  the 
animals  do  in  the  world  you  may  not  like  so  well  to  kill  them.  And  there  is  a  new  kind  of 
hunting  that  is  just  as  much  fun — with  a  camera.  This  picture  shows  a  boy  in  ambush, 
ready  to  shoot,  by  pressing  a  bulb;  for  the  bird  in  the  tree  is  exactly  in  front  of  the  shutter 
of  the  camera. 

beings  aren't  anywhere  near  as  bright,  according  to  the 
chance  they've  had,  as  the  bears  and  the  beavers  and  the 
ants  and  the  bees,  and  many  others  that  could  be  named. 
Why,  do  you  know  that  in  the  whole  history  of  the  human 
race  there  have  been  only  a  few  really  bright  people,  like 
Mr.  Shakespere  and  Mr.  Kipling,  Mr.  Archimedes  and 
Mr.  Edison.  It  was  such  men  as  these — not  over  two  thou- 
sand or  three  thousand  out  of  the  millions  upon  millions  of 
human  beings  who  have  lived  on  the  earth — that  raised 
the  rest  up  from  the  Stone  Age  to  where  they  are  to-day. 

"Into  the  coarse  dough  of  humanity  an  infrequent  genius  has 
put  some  enchanted  yeast." 


228    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

That's  the  way  a  recent  English  writer  puts  it.  And 
then  he  goes  on  to  say  that  if  snakes  and  beasts  of  prey 
had  been  as  clever  as  the  bees  and  ants  and  beavers,  men 
would  have  been  exterminated.  They  could  have  saved 
themselves  only  by  getting  on  with  their  education,  climb- 
ing up  the  grades,  a  good  deal  faster  than  they  have  done. 

He  says  it — this  Englishman — almost  in  the  very  words 
of  Brer  Bear.  And  we  can  imagine  Brer  Bear  going  on, 
taking  up  where  the  Englishman  leaves  off. 

"In  other  words,"  says  Brer  Bear,  "it  was  because  the 
bees  and  ants  and  beavers  went  on  minding  their  own  busi- 
ness, neither  hurting  you  nor  giving  any  pointers  to  the 
wolves  and  the  lions  and  the  snakes,  that  you're  still  here, 
Mr.  Lord  Man !  That's  part  of  the  story  of  how  you  got 
to  be  lord  of  creation.  Noyv  listen  to  the  rest  of  it:1 

"  'The  cave-dwellings  of  men  were  stolen  from  cave-lions  and 
cave-bears;  their  pit-dwellings  were  copied  from  the  holes  and  tun- 
nels burrowed  by  many  animals;  and  in  their  lake-dwellings  they 
collected  hints  from  five  sources:  natural  bridges,  the  platforms 
built  by  apes,  the  habits  of  waterfowl,  the  beaver's  dam  and  lodge, 
and  the  nests  of  birds.  In  the  round  hut,  which  was  made  with 
branches  and  wattle-and-daub,  stick  nests  were  united  to  the  plas- 
ter work  of  rock  martins.  Yes,  a  good  workman  in  the  construc- 
tion of  mud  walls  does  no  more  than  rock  martins  have  done  in  all 
the  ages  of  their  nest-building. 

" '  Suppose  primitive  man  cut  down  a  tree  with  his  flint  axe, 
choosing  one  that  grew  aslant  over  a  chasm  or  across  a  river;  or 
suppose  he  piled  stepping-stones  together  in  the  middle  of  a  water- 
way, and  then  used  this  pier  as  a  support  for  two  tree  trunks,  whose 

1  Here  imagine  Brer  Bear  putting  on  his  specs  and  reading  from  the 
book. 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE  DUST 


229 


far  ends  rested  on  the  bank  sides.  Neither  of  these  ideas  has  more 
mother  wit  than  that  which  has  enabled  ants  to  bore  tunnels  under 
running  water,  and  to  make  bridges  by  clinging  to  each  other  in  a 
suspension  chain  of  their  wee,  brave  bodies.'" 

HOW   MAN  HELPED   HIMSELF   TO    OTHER  PEOPLE'S   IDEAS 

So  you  see  that  isn't  just  Mr.  Bear's  way  of  putting  it; 
there  are  human  beings  who  think  a  good  deal  as  he  does. 


From  '•  Bugs,  Butterflies  and  Beetles,"  by  Dan  Beard.     By  permission  ofj.  B.  Lippincott 
IF  BEETLES  WERE  AS  BIG  AS  BOYS 

Our  six-footed  brothers  are  wonderfully  strong  in  proportion  to  their  size,  and  it  would 
go  hard  with  us  if  beetles,  for  example,  were  as  big  as  boys. 

Myself,  I  agree  with  Brer  Bear  and  Brer  Brangyn.1  For 
man  certainly,  take  him  by  and  large,  doesn't  always  set 
a  good  example  to  his  fellow  animals,  either  in  making  the 
best  of  his  opportunities  or  in  giving  his  humble  brothers 
a  square  deal. 

Do  you  know  what  I  felt  like  saying,  back  there  in 

1  That's  the  name  of  the  Englishman  I've  just  been  quoting.  He's 
a  famous  artist,  but,  like  most  cultivated  Englishmen,  can  also  write 
a  good  book  when  he  feels  like  it. 


230    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

Chapter  IX,  when  we  were  speaking  of  kingfishers,  and 
how -certain  parties  had  given  it  out  that  kingfishers  eat 
big  fish  that  otherwise  might  be  caught  with  a  hook  or  a 
seine?  This  is  what  I  felt  like  saying: 

"What  if  they  do?    Who's  got  a  better  right?" 

Then  they'd  say — these  men — I  suppose: 

"Why,  ive  have;   we're  sportsmen!" 

"Oh,  yes,"  I'd  say,  "you're  the  kind  of  sportsman  that's 
so  afraid  somebody  else  will  see  and  kill  something  before 
you  do;  particularly  if  that  somebody  is  itself  a  wild  crea- 
ture that  has  to  earn  its  living  that  way  and  only  takes 
what  it  needs  for  its  family ! " 

And  they're  so  good-natured  about  it,  most  of  these 
country  cousins  of  ours,  that  we  walked  right  in  on  and 
ordered  out,  Cousin  Woodchuck,  for  instance. 

"The  woodchuck  can  no  more  see  the  propriety  of  fencing  off — 
though  he  admits  that  stone  walls  are  fine  refuges,  in  case  he  has 
to  run  for  it — a  space  of  the  very  best  fodder  than  the  British 
peasant  can  see  the  right  of  shutting  him  out  of  a  grove  where  there 
are  wild  rabbits,  or  forbidding  him  to  fish  in  certain  streams.  So 
he  climbs  over,  or  digs  under,  or  creeps  through,  the  fence,  and 
makes  a  path  or  a  playground  for  himself  amid  the  timothy  and  the 
clover,  and  laughs,  as  he  listens  from  a  hole  in  the  wall  or  under  a 
stump,  to  hear  the  farmer  using  language  which  is  good  Saxon  but 
bad  morals,  and  the  dog  barking  himself  into  a  fit."1 

II.    THE  SCHOOL  OF  THE  WOODS  AND  FIELDS 

I  don't  mean  to  say,  mind  you,  that  the  farmer  hasn't 
any  rights  in  his  own  fields,  and  that  he  should  turn  every- 
thing over  to  the  woodchuck  and  the  rest,  but  I  do  mean 
1  Ingersoll:  "Wild  Neighbors." 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE   DUST 


231 


to  say  that  our  wild  kinsmen  have  rights  and  that 
is  a  lot  more  to  be  got  out  of  them  than  their  flesh  or 
hides  or  the  pleasure  of  killing  them. 

For  one  thing,  the  ant  and  the  angleworm,  the 
and  the  woodchucks,  the  little 
lichens  and  the  big  trees,  the 
winds  and  the  rains,  are  all 
teachers  in  the  Great  School 
of  Out-of-Doors,  and  in  this 
school  you  can  learn  almost 
everything  there  is  to  be 
learned.  It's  really  a  univer- 
sity. Nature  study,  as  you  call 
it  in  the  grades,  besides  all  the 
facts  it  teaches  you,  trains  the 
eye  to  see,  and  the  ear  to 
listen,  and  the  brain  to  reason, 
and  the  heart  to  feel. 


there 
their 

birds 


STORY    OF    THE    LONDON 
BANKER  AND  HIS  ANTS 

Once  there  was  a  London 


SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK 

The  great  London  banker  who  carried 
ants  in  his  pocket. 


banker  who  used  to  go  around 

with — what  do  you  think — in  his  pockets  ?  Money  ?  Yes, 
I  suppose  so;  but  what  else?  You'll  never  guess — ants! 
He  was  a  lot  more  interested  in  ants  than  he  was  in  money ; 
and  so,  while  the  business  world  knew  him  as  a  big  banker, 
all  the  scientific  world  knew  him  as  a  great  naturalist.  He 
wrote  not  only  nature  books  but  other  books,  including 
one  on  "The  Pleasures  of  Life,"  and  among  life's  greatest 
pleasures  he  placed  the  "friendship,"  as  he  puts  it,  of  things 


232    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

in  Nature.  He  said  he  never  went  into  the  woods  but  he 
found  himself  welcomed  by  a  glad  company  of  friends, 
every  one  with  something  interesting  to  tell.  And,  in 
speaking  of  the  wide-spread  growth  of  interest  in  Nature 
in  recent  years,  he  said: 

"The  study  of  natural  history  indeed,  seems  destined  to  replace 
the  loss  of  what  is,  not  very  happily,  I  think,  termed  'sport.'" 

And  isn't  it  curious,  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  why 
a  man  should  take  pleasure  in  seeing  a  beautiful  deer  fall 
dead  with  a  bullet  in  its  heart?  You'd  think  there  would 
be  so  much  more  pleasure  hi  seeing  him  run — the  very 
poetry  of  motion.  Or,  why  should  a  boy  want  to  kill  a 
little  bird?  You'd  think  it  would  have  been  so  much 
greater  pleasure  to  study  its  flight  or  to  listen  to  the  happy 
notes  pour  out  from  that  "little  breast  that  will  throb 
with  song  no  more." 

WHY   MAN   KILLS   AND    CALLS    IT    "  SPORT " 

Among  other  animals  that  this  banker  naturalist  stud- 
ied was  man  himself;  man  when  he  was  even  more  of 
an  animal  than  he  is  to-day,  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  curious  killing  instinct  is  a  survival  of  the  long 
ages  when  man  had  to  earn  his  living  by  the  chase. 

"Deep  in  the  gloom  of  a  fireless  cave 
When  the  night  fell  o'er  the  plain 
And  the  moon  hung  red  o'er  the  river  bed, 
He  mumbled  the  bones  of  the  slain. 

Loud  he  howled  through  the  moonlit  wastes, 
Loud  answered  his  kith  and  kin; 


THE  BROTHERHOOD  OF  THE  DUST          233 

From  west  and  east  to  the  crimson  feast 
The  clan  came  trooping  in. 
O'er  joint  and  gristle  and  padded  hoof, 
They  fought  and  clawed  and  tore."  l 

Not  a  very  pretty  picture,  is  it?  Yet  it's  true.  But, 
fortunately,  so  is  this  one  of  the  happiest  hours  of  the  cave- 
man's grandchild. 

"Oh,  for  boyhood's  painless  play, 
Sleep  that  wakes  in  laughing  day, 
Health  that  mocks  the  doctor's  rules, 
Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools: 
Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild  flower's  time  and  place; 
Flight  of  fowl,  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood; 
How  the  tortoise  bears  his  shell, 
How  the  woodchuck  digs  his  cell 
And  the  ground-mole  sinks  his  well. 

Of  the  black  wasp's  cunning  way, 
Mason  of  his  walls  of  clay 
And  the  architectural  plans 
Of  gray  hornet  artisans. 
For,  eschewing  books  and  tasks, 
Nature  answers  all  he  asks."  2 

Some  boy  wrote  to  John  Burroughs  once,  and  asked 
how  to  become  a  naturalist.  In  his  reply,  Burroughs  said: 

"I  have  spent  seventy-seven  years  in  the  world,  and  they  have 
all  been  contented  and  happy  years.  I  am  certain  that  my  great- 

1  Adapted  from  Langdon  Smith.         2  Whittier's  "Barefoot  Boy." 


234    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

est  source  of  happiness  has  been  my  love  of  nature;  my  love  of  the 
farm,  of  the  birds,  the  animals,  the  flowers,  and  all  open-air  things. 
"You  can  begin  to  be  a  naturalist  right  where  you  are,  in  any 
place,  in  any  season."  1 

It  is  the  wholesomest,  most  inspiring  reading  in  all  the 
world,  this  Book  of  Nature.  And  there  is  simply  no  end 
to  it.  Just  see  what  all  we've  been  led  into 
merely  in  following  out  the  story  of  a  grain  of 
dust;  and  even  then,  I've  only  dipped  into  it  here 
and  there,  as  you  can  see  by  the  hints  of  things 
to  be  looked  up  in  the  library.  If  we  had  gone 
into  all  the  highways  and  byways  of  the  sub- 
ject— for  it's  all  one  continued  story,  from  the 
making  of  the  planets,  circling  in  the  fields  of 
space,  to  the  making  of  the  little  dust  grains  that 
are  whirled  along  in  the  winds  of  March — if  we 
followed  the  story  all  through  we  would  have  to 
have  learned  professors  to  teach  us  Astronomy, 
Geology,  Chemistry,  Zoology,  with 

WHOSE  AUTOGRAPH         .  ,    ..    .  . 

is  THIS?  subdivisions     of     Paleontology, 

if  you're  a  boy  scout  you      Ornithology,  Entomology,  and  so  on; 

±Sbhattrheec°rwe.thif      a  whole  college  faculty  sitting  on  a 

not  look  it  up  in   the  Boy        grajn  of  (Just  ! 
Scout  Handbook. 

III.     THE  WORLD  BROTHERHOOD 

An  obvious  thing  in  Nature  is  what  is  called  "the  strug- 
gle for  existence";    animals  and  plants  fighting  among 
themselves  and  against  enemies  of  their  species  in  the  uni- 
versal struggle  for  food.    What  is  not  so  obvious,  is  how 
1  "Pictured  Knowledge." 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE  DUST 


235 


the  whole  world  of  things  works  together  toward  the  com- 
mon good. 

HOW  THE  LICHENS  AND  THE  VOLCANOES  WORK  TOGETHER 

For  example,  working  with  those  quiet  little  people,  the 
lichens,  is  one  of  the  biggest  and  noisiest  things  in  the  world 


Courtesy  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway 

HOW  THE  DEAD  LAVA  COMES  TO  LIFE 

Lava,  after  it  has  been  converted  into  soil,  by  the  agents  of  decay,  makes  the  richest  land 
in  the  world.  This  picture  shows  a  vineyard  on  the  fertile  plains  overlooked  by  Mt.  Ranier, 
which  is  an  extinct  volcano.  In  the  days  when  Mt.  Rainer  was  being  built  these  plains  were 
covered  with  molten  lava. 


—the  volcano.  The  volcanoes  not  only  pour  into  the  air 
vast  quantities  of  carbon-gas,  which  is  the  breath  of  life 
to  plants,  but  help  the  lichens  and  the  rest  of  the  soil- 
makers  with  their  work  in  other  ways.  And  as  the  vol- 
canoes help  the  lichens  get  their  breath,  the  lichens  for- 


236    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

ward  the  world  service  of  the  volcanoes  by  turning  their 
lava  into  soil;  in  course  of  time,  hiding  the  most  desolate 
of  these  black  iron  wastes  under  a  rich  garment  of  green. 
It  is  thus  the  dead  lava  comes  to  life,  and  it  is  the  very 
smallest  of  the  lichen  family  that  starts  the  process. 

Among  the  two  principal  gases  of  the  air  there  is  a  work- 
ing brotherhood;  just  as  there  is  between  the  plants  and 
the  animals  in  their  great  breath  exchange.  The  oxygen 
in  the  air  makes  a  specialty  of  crumbling  up  rock  contain- 
ing iron.  It  rusts  this  iron  into  dust;  while  the  CO  2,  as  the 
High  School  Boy  calls  what  I  have  called  carbon,  for  short, 
goes  after  the  rocks  that  contain  lime,  potash,  and  soda. 

Working  with  both  these  gases  is  the  frost  that,  with 
its  prying  fingers,  enlarges  the  cracks  in  stones,  and  so  al- 
lows the  gases  of  the  water  and  the  air  to  reach  in  farther 
than  they  could  otherwise  do. 

Every  Winter,  with  its  frost  and  its  storing  up  of  mois- 
ture in  the  great  snow-fields  of  the  mountains,  is  a  bene- 
fit to  the  lands  and  their  people,  but  the  Ice  Age,  "The 
Winter  that  Lasted  All  Summer," *  not  only  worked  won- 
ders in  other  ways,  but  was  of  far  greater  benefit  to  the 
soil  because  it  was  so  much  more  of  a  Winter. 

Mr.  Shakespere,  in  his  day,  didn't  know  anything  about 
an  Ice  Age,  but  Brer  Bear  might  have  quoted  certain  lines 
of  his,  just  the  same: 

"Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind, 
Thou  art  not  so  unkind 
As  man's  ingratitude. 
Freeze,  freeze,  thou  bitter  sky, 
Thou  dost  not  bite  so  nigh 
As  benefits  forgot."  2 
1  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble."  2  "As  You  Like  It." 


THE  BROTHERHOOD  OF  THE  DUST 


237 


Courtesy  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway 

ASTER-GROWING  IN  VOLCANIC  ASH  ON  MT.  RANIER 


THE    GREAT   PLOUGHS   OF   THE   ICE   AGES 

With  all  the  work  the  other  agencies  do  in  changing  the 
rock  into  soil,  and  fertilizing  and  refreshing  it  with  addi- 
tions from  the  subsoil,  there  still  remains  an  important 
thing  to  be  done,  and  that  is  to  mix  the  soil  from  different 
kinds  of  rock.  This  is  still  done  constantly  by  the  winds 
and  flowing  waters,  but  every  so  often,  apparently,  there 
needs  to  be  a  deeper,  wider  stirring  and  mixing.  This  the 
great  ice  ploughs  and  glacial  rivers  of  the  Ice  Ages  did. 
And  they  do  it  every  so  often,  probably;  for  there  was  more 
than  one  Ice  Age  in  the  past,  and,  as  Nature's  processes  do 
not  change,  it  is  more  than  likely  there  will  be  more  ice 
ages  and  more  deep  ploughing  and  redistribution  of  the 


238    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

soil  in  the  future.  As  you  will  see,  if  you  take  the  trouble 
to  look  it  up  in  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble,"  it 
is  thought  we  may  now  be  in  the  springtime  of  one  of  those 
vaster  changes  which  bring  Springs  lasting  for  ages,  fol- 


HOW  THE  MOUNTAINS  FEED  THE  PLAINS 

"The  elevations  of  the  earth's  surface  provide  for  it  a  perpetual  renovation.  The  higher 
mountains  suffer  their  summits  to  be  broken  into  fragments  and  to  be  cast  down  in  sheets  of 
massy  rock,  full  of  every  substance  necessary  for  the  nourishment  of  plants,  and  each  filter- 
ing thread  of  summer  rain  is  bearing  its  own  appointed  burden  of  earth  to  be  thrown  down 
on  the  dingles  below. 


lowed  by  long  Summers  and  Autumns,  and  by  the  age- 
long Winters  and  the  big  glaciers  and  all. 

The  glaciers,  moving  over  thousands  of  miles  and  often 
meeting  and  dumping  their  loads  together  on  vast  fields, 
did  the  very  same  thing  for  everybody  that  England  does 
for  herself  to-day  in  bringing  different  kinds  of  fertilizers 
from  all  over  the  world  to  enrich  her  farms.  I'm  very  glad 
to  speak  of  this  because  the  author  of  the  story  of  the  peb- 
ble may  have  left  a  bad  impression  of  the  glaciers — "The 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE   DUST 


239 


Old  Men  of  the  Mountain" — as  farmers,  by  what  he  said 
about  their  carrying  off  the  original  farm  lands  of  New 
England,  and  leaving  a  lot  of  pebbles  and  boulders  instead. 
While  these  pebbles  have  not  produced  what  you  would 


From  Tan  and  Martin's ' '  College  Physiography."  By  permission  of  the  Macmillan  Company 
GOOD  CROPS  FROM  NEW  ENGLAND'S  STONY  FIELDS 

While  the  stones,  big  and  little,  with  which  the  fields  of  New  England  are  so  richly  supplied 
have  not  produced  what  you  would  call  a  brilliant  performer  among  soils,  they  have  made 
a  good  steady  soil  that  can  turn  its  hand  to  almost  anything,  and  that  has  helped  greatly 
in  growing  farm  boys  into  famous  men.  In  building  those  stone  fences,  for  example,  the 
boys  learned  that  it  always  pays  to  do  your  work  well.  A  hundred  years  is  merely  the  tick 
of  a  watch  in  the  life  of  a  fence  like  that ! 

call  a  brilliant  performer  among  soils,  they  have  made  a 
good,  steady  soil  that  in  New  England  has  helped  greatly 
in  growing  farm  boys  into  famous  men,  while  the  pebbles 
of  Wisconsin  have  been  of  immense  service  to  her  famous 
cows.  In  the  counties  in  Wisconsin  where  there  are  plenty 
of  pebbles  scattered  through  the  soil,  the  production  of  cheese 
and  butter  is  something  like  50  per  cent  greater  than  it  is 
in  regions  where  there  are  comparatively  few  pebbles.1 

1  Martin:  "Physiography  of  Wisconsin." 


240    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

The  soils  of  New  England  are  like  the  New  Englander 
himself,  they  can  turn  their  hands  to  almost  anything; 
raise  any  kind  of  crop  suited  to  the  climate,  while  richer 
soils  are  often  not  so  versatile.  The  reason  is  that  these 
pebbles  were  originally  gathered  by  the  glaciers  from  widely 
separated  river-beds,  and  so  contain  all  varieties  of  rock 
with  every  kind  of  plant  food  in  them.  It  takes  a  long, 
long  time  to  make  soil  out  of  bed-rock,  but  in  the  case  of 
soils  in  which  there  are  a  great  many  pebbles  it  is  different; 
and  you  can  see  why.  On  a  great  mass  of  rock  there  is 
comparatively  little  surface  for  the  air  and  other  pioneer 
soil-makers  to  get  at,  and  so  decay  is  slow;  while  the  same 
amount  of  rock  broken  up  into  pebbles  presents  a  great 
deal  of  surface  for  decay. 

If  you  will  examine  with  a  glass — an  ordinary  hand- 
glass will  do — one  of  these  decaying  pebbles  lying  em- 
bedded in  the  grass  you  can  trace  on  it  a  number  of  wrinkly 
lines — sometimes  even  a  network.  These  are  the  marks, 
the  "finger-prints,"  of  little  roots.  Little  roots,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  very  wise.  They  always  know  what  they  are 
about,  and  the  fact  that  they  cling  to  the  pebbles  in  this 
way  means  that  they  are  getting  food  out  of  them. 

And  that's  right  where  the  cows  of  Wisconsin  come  in. 
The  rootlets  of  the  grasses  get  a  steady  supply  of  food  from 
the  decaying  surfaces  of  these  pebbles  scattered  through 
the  pastures,  and  then  pass  it  on  to  the  cows. 

TEAMWORK  BETWEEN  MOUNTAINS  AND   PEBBLES 

But  now,  going  from  little  things  to  big  things  again, 
notice  how  the  mountains  and  the  pebbles  are  linked  to- 
gether in  this  chain  of  service.  The  mountains,  too,  con- 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE   DUST 


241 


tinually  feed  the  plains.     Ruskin,  in  speaking  of  this  great 
service,  says: 

"The  elevations  of  the  earth's  surface  provide  for  it  a  perpetual 
renovation.  The  higher  mountains  suffer  their  summits  to  be 
broken  into  fragments,  and  to  be  cast  down  in  sheets  of  massy  rock, 


HOW  PEBBLES  HELP  FEED  THE  COWS 

You'll  think  I'm  joking  at  6rst,  but  it's  the  truth:  Pebbles  are  good  for  cows.  Otherwise 
how  are  you  going  to  account  for  the  fact  that  in  the  counties  in  Wisconsin  where  there  are 
plenty  of  pebbles  the  production  of  cheese  and  butter  is  something  like  50  per  cent  greater 
than  it  is  in  regions  where  there  are  comparatively  few  pebbles?  Examine,  with  a  hand- 
glass, the  "finger  prints"  of  the  little  roots  on  a  decaying  pebble,  and  see  if  you  can't  guess 
why.  Then  read  the  explanation  in  this  chapter. 


full  of  every  substance  necessary  for  the  nourishment  of  plants. 
These  fallen  fragments  are  again  b  oken  by  frost  and  ground  by 
torrents  into  various  conditions  of  sand  and  clay — materials  which 
are  distributed  perpetually  by  the  streams  farther  and  farther  from 
the  mountain's  base.  Every  shower  which  swells  the  rivulets 
enables  their  waters  to  carry  certain  portions  of  earth  into  new 
positions,  and  exposes  new  banks  of  ground  to  be  mined  in  their 
turn.  The  turbid  foaming  of  the  angry  water — the  tearing  down 


242    THE  ADVENTURES   OF  A   GRAIN  OF   DUST 


THE  MILL  OF  THE  EARTHWORM  AND 

"From  the  gizzard  mills  of  the  earthworm  to  the  great  earth  mills 
(In  the  picture  on  the  left  an  earthworm  has  been 

of  bank  and  rock  along  the  flanks  of  its  fury — these  are  no  dis- 
turbances of  the  kind  course  of  nature;  they  are  beneficent  operations 
of  laws  necessary  to  the  existence  of  man,  and  to  the  beauty  of  the 
earth;  .  .  .  and  each  filtering  thread  of  summer  rain  which  tr  ckles 
through  the  short  turf  of  the  uplands  is  bearing  its  own  appointed 
burden  of  earth  to  be  thrown  down  on  some  new  natural  garden  in 
the  dingles  below." 

So  we  find  a  wonderful  variety  of  things  working  to- 
gether in  making  and  feeding  the  soil  that  feeds  the  world: 


THE  BROTHERHOOD  OF  THE  DUST          243 


THE  EARTH  MILLS  OF  THE  SEA 

of  the  sea,  all  are — most  evidently — parts  of  one  great  system." 
laid  open  to  show  its  grinding  apparatus.) 

mountains  and  pebbles,  volcanoes  and  lichens,  the  breath 
of  the  living  and  the  bones  of  the  dead;  the  sun,  the  winds, 
the  sea,  the  rains;  the  farmers  with  four  feet,  the  farmers 
with  six  feet;  the  swallow  building  her  nest  under  the 
eaves,  the  earthworms  burrowing  under  our  feet,  each 
bent  on  its  own  affairs,  to  be  sure,  but  at  the  same  time 
each  helping  to  carry  on  the  great  business  of  the  universe. 
From  the  little  gizzard  mills  of  the  earthworm  to  the  great 
earth  mills  of  the  sea,  that  renew  the  soil  for  the  ages  yet 


244    THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  GRAIN  OF  DUST 

to  come,  all  are — most  evidently — parts  of  one  great  sys- 
tem; are  together  helping  to  work  out  great  purposes  in 
the  advance  of  men  and  things;  purposes  which  require 
that 

"While  the  earth  remaineth,  summer  and  winter,  seed-time  and 
harvest,  shall  not  cease." 

HIDE  AND   SEEK  IN   THE  LIBRARY 

As  I  said,  most  people  not  only  think  that  they're  smarter  than 
their  fellow  animals,  but  when  you  point  out  to  them  how  clever 
some  of  these  other  animals  are,  they  say:  "Oh,  that's  just  instinct !" 
As  if  animals  don't  think  and  learn  by  experience,  and  all,  just  as 
we  do!  You  look  up  "instinct"  in  the  encyclopaedia,  and  you'll 
see.  Then  read  Long's  "Wood  Folk  at  School." 

There's  really  a  lot  more  fun  in  shooting  animals  with  a  camera 
than  with  a  shotgun  or  a  rifle.  Did  you  ever  try  it?  "Hunting 
with  a  Camera"  in  "The  Scientific  American  Boy  at  School,"  by 
Bond,  will  tell  you  how  to  get  the  best  results.  Other  good  point- 
ers on  animal  photography  will  be  found  in  Verrill's  "Boy  Collector's 
Hand  Book"  ("Photographing  Wild  Things")  and  in  "On  the 
Trail,"  by  A.  B.  and  Lina  Beard. 

And  if  you  ever  feel  like  killing  a  bird  "just  for  fun,"  read  in  the 
diary  of  "Opal"  about  the  farmer  boy  who  shot  the  little  girl's 
pet  crow;  it  was  "only  a  crow,"  he  said,  and  he  wanted  to  see  if  he 
could  hit  it.  That  will  cure  you,  I  think.  The  diary  of  "Opal" 
reads  like  a  fairy-tale,  but  it's  all  true,  and  although  it  was  written 
— every  word  of  it — by  a  little  girl  of  seven,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  books  that  anybody  ever  wrote.  The  crow's  name,  by 
the  way,  was  "Lars  Porsina  of  Clusium."  The  little  girl  used  to 
give  her  pets  names  like  that. 

Don't  forget  what  the  great  naturalist,  Agassiz,  said  about  the 
pencil  being  "the  best  eye";  that  is  to  say,  you  can  get  a  more 
accurate  knowledge  of  things  and  come  nearer  to  seeing  them  as 
they  really  are,  by  drawing  them.  Drawing,  in  the  best  schools,  is 
a  part  of  Nature  Study,  and  when  you  get  so  that  you  can  draw 
fairly  well — as  everybody  can  with  practice — you  will  find  there  is 
even  more  of  a  thrill  in  thus  creating  forms — out  of  nothing,  as  you 


THE   BROTHERHOOD   OF  THE   DUST         245 

might  say — than  there  is  in  taking  photographs.  The  pencil  is  a 
magician's  wand !  As  an  example  and  inspiration  for  taking  your 
pencil  and  sketch-book  into  the  fields,  get  "Eye  Spy,"  by  Gibson, 
and,  of  course,  Seton's  animal  books.  I  do  believe  Seton  drew  his 
pictures  with  those  simple,  expressive  outlines  so  that  young  folks 
could  redraw  them.  The  difference  between  redrawing  a  drawing 
and  simply  looking  at  it,  is  a  lot  like  the  difference  between  reading 
a  book  and  merely  glancing  at  the  print. 

You  are  sure  to  be  interested  in  Sir  John  Lubbock's  book  on 
"Ants,  Bees  and  Wasps,"  and  you  will  find  a  world  of  interesting 
things  about  the  earlier  animal  days  of  man  in  his  "Origin  of  Civili- 
zation" and  " Pre-Historic  Times." 

And  who  do  you  suppose  had  most  to  do  with  teaching  men  they 
were  really  brothers,  and  so  bringing  them  up  to  the  civilized  life 
we  know  to-day?  Mother!  (See  Drummond's  "Ascent  of  Man," 
or  Chapter  XII  of  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Pebble,"  where  the 
whole  marvellous  story  of  evolution  is  told  in  simple  form.) 

If  Nature  Study  proves  half  as  delightful  and  profitable  to  you 
as  I  am  sure  it  will,  the  following  list  of  books  will  be  very  useful 
in  building  up  your  library  on  the  subject,  and  in  selecting  books 
from  the  public  library: 

"Among  the  Farmyard  People,"  by  Clara  D.  Pierson,  deals  with 
various  things  you  probably  never  noticed  about  chickens  and  pigs, 
and  other  domestic  animals.  "Among  the  Meadow  People,"  by 
the  same  author,  tells  about  birds  and  insects.  You  can  see  what 
her  "Among  the  Pond  People"  tells  about — tadpoles,  frogs,  and 
so  on.  Really,  it's  a  perfect  fairy-land,  an  old  pond  is!  "Among 
the  Moths  and  Butterflies,"  by  Julia  P.  Ballard,  is  about  fairies, 
too,  as  the  title  shows. 

For  children  of  the  seventh  to  eighth  grades,  and  up,  Horna- 
day's  "American  Natural  History"  will  be  a  delight,  and  it  has 
loads  of  pictures  which,  as  in  all  well-illustrated  scientific  books, 
are  as  valuable  as  the  text.  You  know  who  Hornaday  is,  don't 
you?  He  is  the  man  at  the  head  of  the  great  Zoo  in  New  York 
City. 

Margaret  W.  Morley's  "The  Bee  People"  is  worthy  of  its  sub- 
ject, and  that's  about  the  highest  praise  you  could  give  to  a  book 
about  bees,  I  think.  Then  don't  forget,  when  you  are  in  the  li- 
brary, to  look  up  her  "Grasshopper  Land."  The  grasshopper  book 
also  treats  of  the  grasshopper's  cousins,  which  include  the  crickets 


246    THE  ADVENTURES   OF   A   GRAIN  OF  DUST 

and  the  katydids;  yes,  and  the  "walking  sticks";  and  the  "praying 
mantis."  (Did  you  know  that  whether  you  spell  this  weird  little 
creature's  first  name,  "praying,"  with  an  "e"  or  an  "a"  you'd  be 
correct  ?) 

Every  boy  and  girt,  of  course,  is  supposed  to  know  about  Ernest 
Thompson  Seton's  books,  but  for  fear  some  of  them  don't,  I'll 
mention  a  few  that  it  simply  wouldn't  do  to  miss.  "Animal 
Heroes"  gives  the  history  of  a  cat,  a  dog,  a  pigeon,  a  lynx,  two 
wolves  and  a  reindeer;  "Krag  and  Johnny  Bear"  is  made  up  from 
his  larger  book,  "Lives  of  the  Hunted";  "Lobo,  Rag  and  Vixen" 
is  from  his  "Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known,"  and  "The  Trail  of  the 
Sandhill  Stag." 

John  Burroughs  is  very  different  from  Seton  and  Long,  but  the 
older  you  get  the  better  you  will  like  him.  His  is  one  of  the  great 
names  in  the  study  of  Nature's  pages  at  first  hand  and,  as  literature, 
ranks  with  the  work  of  Thoreau.  Get  his  "Birds,  Bees  and  Other 
Papers,"  "Squirrels  and  Other  Fur-bearers." 

Darwin,  one  of  the  greatest  men  in  the  whole  history  of  science — 
the  man  whose  name  is  most  prominently  identified  with  the  great- 
est discovery  in  science,  the  principle  of  evolution — how  do  you 
suppose  he  started  out  ?  Just  by  looking  around  !  Read  about  it 
in  "What  Mr.  Darwin  Saw  in  His  Voyage  around  the  World." 


INDEX 


(For  numerous  practical  suggestions  as  to  the  use  of  an  index  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  preface  to  the  index  in  the  author's  "Strange 
Adventures  of  a  Pebble.") 


Africa,  one  country  where  the 
Hornbills  live,  169 

Ants,  their  interesting  habits  in  re- 
lation to  the  history  of  the  soil, 
94;  ants  that  thresh  and  store, 
205,  213;  how  they  clean  up 
after  the  day's  work,  208 

Aphids,  how  they  supply  the  ants 
with  honey,  99 

Armadillo,  a  four-footed  farmer 
who  wears  armor;  how  fast  he 
can  dig,  120;  the  funny  gimlet 
nose  that  helps  him  travel  so 
fast  under  the  ground,  121 

Asia,  one  of  the  countries  where 
the  Hornbills  live,  169;  home  of 
a  farmer  who  stores  grain  for  the 
winter,  212 

Australia,  home  of  that  animal 
paradox,  the  Duck-billed  Mole, 
144;  and  of  birds  that  hatch 
their  babies  with  an  incubator, 
174 

Bears,  how  they  go  into  winter 
quarters,  216,  219 

Beavers,  their  work  and  their  wis- 
dom, 148 

Bees.  (See  Mason  Bee  and  Bum- 
blebee.) 

Beetle,  Sacred  (Tumble  Bug),  sin- 
ful tactics  of,  92 

Birds,  their  ancestors  among  the 
ancient  monsters,  24;  service  of 


the  Moas  in  ploughing  and  in 
grinding  up  rock,  28 ;  other  farm- 
ers who  wear  feathers,  162 
Bumblebees,   their   homes    under 
the  ground,  104 

Caveman,  what  he  learned  from 
his  fellow  animals,  228 

Central  America,  a  good  place  to 
look  for  Flamingoes,  166 

Chipmunks,  work  and  play  in 
Chipmunkville,  131;  why  they 
have  large  feet  for  such  little 
people,  132;  inside  the  Chip- 
munk's home,  132;  why  they 
have  several  front  doors,  133; 
how  they  spend  the  winter,  218 

Clouds,  how  dust  helps  make 
them,  56;  and  shape  them,  57 

Colorado,  once  the  home  of  pre- 
historic monsters,  27 

Corn,  how  the  "rag  babies"  tell 
the  fortune  of  the  seed,  199 

Crabs,  water  farmers  who  help 
make  land,  140 

Crayfish,  their  habits  and  their  ser- 
vice in  helping  get  land  ready 
for  the  farmer,  140 

Crustaceans,  their  relation  to  in- 
sects, 143 

Cuvier,  Baron,  the  famous  paleon- 
tologist, and  his  adventure  with 
a  "monster,"  34 


247 


248 


INDEX 


Dandelions,  flying  machines  of,  51 

Darwin,  Charles,  on  the  impor- 
tance of  earthworms  in  the  his- 
tory of  human  civilization,  75; 
what  he  said  about  the  intelli- 
gence of  roots  and  why  he  said 
it  (the  whole  chapter  is  about 
that),  1 86;  how  he  taught  roots 
to  write  their  autobiographies, 
190 

Deserts,  plant  pioneers  in,  8;  rich 
in  plant  food,  59;  how  irrigation 
transforms  them,  72 

Dormice,  their  Thanksgiving  din- 
ners and  their  long  winter  naps, 
204,  217 

Duck-billed  Mole,  the  Animal  X 
that  lays  eggs  like  a  bird  and  yet 
suckles  its  young  like  a  pussy- 
cat, 144 

Dust,  how  it  helps  the  rain  come 
down,  56 

Earthworms,  great  importance  of 
their  work  in  pulverizing  and 
fertilizing  the  soil,  75;  their 
habits  and  remarkable  intelli- 
gence, 75 ;  how  the  great  sea  and 
the  little  earthworms  work  to- 
gether, 242 

East  Indies,  home  of  some  of  the 
Hornbills,  169 

Electricity,  how  it  helps  in  the 
shaping  of  the  clouds,  57 

Elephants,  their  ancestors  among 
the  prehistoric  monsters,  27; 
elephants  as  ploughmen,  28 

Fabre,  Henri,  his  study  of  the 
Mason  Bee  and  how  his  school- 
boys helped  him,  108 

Farms,  abandoned,  how  Nature 
restores  them,  16 

Fish,  monster  fish  of  other  days,  23 

Flamingoes,  habits  of  some  feath- 


ered farmers  with  queer  noses, 
162 
Klorida,  one  place  where  you  may 

find  flamingoes,  166 
Vox,  home  life  and  habits,  128 
Frost,  Jack,  how  he  helps  convert 
rock  into  soil,  43;  how  he  makes 
stones    "walk"    and    in    other 
ways  co-operates  with  the  river 
mills  in  making  soil,  60 

Geese,  their  relation  to  the  flamin- 
goes, 1 66 
Groundhog.     (See  Woodchuck.) 

Hamster,  a  four-footed  farmer  who 
uses  a  threshing-machine,  210 

Hedgehogs,  why  they  are  so  un- 
popular as  food,  121;  their  homes 
and  how  they  do  their  ploughing, 
122 ;  pictures  of  baby  hedgehogs, 
216,  217;  why  they  go  into  win- 
ter quarters,  216,  218 

Hibernation,  "The  Autumn  Stores 
and  the  Long  Winter  Night," 
204 

Hornbills,  why  Mr.  Hornbill  shuts 
his  wife  up  in  their  home  in  a 
hollow  tree,  169 

Hungary,  home  of  the  field  rat,  a 
farmer  who  stores  grain  for  the 
winter,  212 

Ice  Ages,  how  the  glaciers  ploughed 
and  mixed  the  soil,  237 

Insects,  their  service  in  pulverizing 
and  fertilizing  the  soil,  92;  dam- 
age done  by  injurious  insects, 
93;  relation  of  insects  to  crus- 
taceans, 143 

Kangaroo  rat,  131 

Kingfishers,  their  tunnel  homes  in 
the  bank  and  how  their  fishing 
habits  help  enrich  the  soil,  171 


INDEX 


249 


Kiwi,  a  late  bird  that  nevertheless 
gets  the  worm,  167 

Lichens,  first  of  the  soil  makers — 
how  they  helped  Columbus  dis- 
cover the  world  by  discovering 
i±  first,  I ;  how  the  volcanoes  and 
the  lichens  work  together,  235 

Lizards,  reign  of  the  lizard  family 
in  the  days  of  the  prehistoric 
monsters,  25 

Lubbock,  Sir  John,  the  great  Lon- 
don banker  who  carried  ants  in 
his  pocket — what  he  had  to  say 
about  the  pleasures  of  Nature 
Study,  231 

Maeterlinck,  on  the  presence  of 
mind  of  a  tree  and  its  heroic 
struggle  against  adverse  circum- 
stances, 200 

Marmots,  their  farm  villages,  124 

Mason-Bees.  The  house  that 
Mrs.  Mason-Bee  built  and  its 
relation  to  the  story  of  the  soil, 
104 

Moles,  their  work  as  ploughmen, 
115;  how  they  do  their  tunnel- 
ling, 117;  Mr.  Mole's  castle  un- 
der the  ground,  118;  how  he 
keeps  his  hair  so  sleek,  119; 
where  he  spends  the  winter,  218 

Monsters,  prehistoric,  what  they 
looked  like,  their  habits  and  how 
they  help  the  farmers  of  to-day 
with*  their  farming,  20 

Mosses,  as  soil  makers,  8 

Mound-Birds,  how  they  build  their 
incubators;  other  interesting 
habits,  174 

Mountains,  how  the  trees  climb 
them,  13;  why  you  always  hear 
a  rattle  of  stones  in  the  moun- 
tains at  sunrise,  43;  how  the 
winds  help  trees  to  climb  the 


western  slopes,  55;  how  the 
mountains  help  the  rain  to  come 
down  and  why  so  many  rivers 
rise  in  mountains,  56;  why  the 
bones  of  the  monsters  are  found 
in  the  mountains,  31;  how  the 
mountains  helped  kill  off  the 
monsters,  32;  farm  villages  of 
the  marmots  in  the  mountains, 
124;  team-work  between  moun- 
tains and  pebbles,  240 

Nature  Study,  its  great  value,  231 ; 
how  it  is  taking  the  place  of 
cruel  sport,  232 

New  England,  why  its  soil  is  so 
versatile  and  dependable,  and 
how  it  helps  grow  farm  boys  into 
famous  men,  239 

New  Zealand,  home  of  a  bird  that 
is  a  very  late  riser  but  neverthe- 
less gets  the  worm,  167 

Oven-Birds,  of  South  America, 
how  they  differ  from  the  Ameri- 
can oven-birds,  172;  their  re- 
markable adobe  homes  and 
their  friendliness  toward  man, 
172 

Pebbles,  how  they  help  feed  the 
Wisconsin  cows,  239,  240;  team- 
work between  mountains  and 
pebbles,  240 

Philippines,  one  of  the  regions 
where  mound-birds  live,  174, 176 

Ploughing,  Nature's  system:  work 
of  the  squirrels,  14;  of  the 
elephants  and  their  ancestors 
among  prehistoric  monsters,  27; 
of  the  Moas,  28;  of  the  Dino- 
saurs, 29;  storm  ploughs  of  the 
winds,  46;  use  of  the  plough  to 
prevent  soil  waste,  70 ;  the  great 
ploughs  of  the  Ice  Ages,  237 


25° 


INDEX 


Pocket  Gopher,  Thompson-Seton's 
"master  ploughman,"  128;  why 
he  has  that  queer  expression  on 
his  face,  128;  how  he  spends  the 
winter,  218 

Pocket- Mouse,  130,  131 

Pot  Holes,  soil-grinding  mills  of 
the  rivers,  61 

Prairie- Dog,  his  watch  tower  and 
how  it  protects  him  from  his 
enemies,  126;  his  great  sociabil- 
ity, 127 

Rains,  their  work  in  making  and 
transporting  soil,  44,  55 

Rivers,  work  of  the  river  mills  in 
soil  making,  60 

Roots,  how  lichens  get  along  with- 
out them,  4;  how  and  why  they 
work  at  different  levels,  1 1 ;  how 
they  make  their  way  about  (you 
won't  wonder  that  Darwin  said 
their  actions  suggested  intelli- 
gence !),  1 86 

Sand,  how  it  helps  the  soil  to 
breathe,  59 

Seeds,  how  they  determine  the  or- 
der of  march  of  the  trees,  12 ;  use 
of  screw-propellers  and  other  de- 
vices, 42,  49,  51;  how  and  why 
baby  plants  back  into  the  world, 
190;  how  they  tried  to  change  a 
sprouting  seedling's  mind  but 
couldn't,  195;  how  "rag  babies" 
tell  the  fortune  of  corn,  199 

Shrews,  their  work  as  ploughmen, 
115;  where  they  spend  the  win- 
ter, 218 

Siberia,  there  you  will  find  the 
voles  and  their  root  cellars,  212 

South  America,  home  of  the  four- 
footed  farmers  that  wear  armor, 
120;  and  of  the  viscacha,  127;  a 
good  place  to  look  for  flamin- 


goes, 166;  and  for  oven-birds, 
171 

.South  Sea  Islands,  one  of  the  re- 
gions in  which  you  find  birds 
that  hatch  their  babies  with  an 
incubator,  174 

Squirrels,  how  they  help  the  trees 
to  march,  14;  the  winding  streets 
of  Ground-Squirrd  Town,  123; 
marmots,  the  largest  of  the 
squirrel  family,  124;  how  the 
tree-squirrels  spend  the  winter, 
218 

Swallows,  their  habits  and  their 
service  as  soil  makers,  177 

Termites,  insects  improperly  called 
"white  ants";  their  habits  in  re- 
lation to  the  history  of  the  soil, 
IOO 

Terracing,  how  employed  to  pre- 
vent waste  of  soil,  71 

Texas,  you  can  still  find  arma- 
dillos there,  120 

Trees,  their  settled  order  of  march 
into  new  lands,  8;  how  the  winds 
and  the  rains  help  trees  to  climb 
the  western  slopes  of  mountains, 
55;  how  waste  of  trees  causes 
waste  of  soil,  69 

Turtles,  how  turtles  differ  from 
tortoises;  habits  of  both  these 
water  farmers,  137;  how  turtles 
differ  from  crabs  in  their  notions 
about  laying  eggs,  142 

Viscachas,  South  American  rela- 
tives of  the  prairie-dogs;  their 
villages  and  their  athletic  fields, 
127;  how  they  rescue  their 
buried  comrades,  128 

Volcanoes,  their  contribution  to 
soil  making,  y);  how  they  help 
the  plant  world  to  get  its  breath, 


INDEX 


251 


40;    team-work    between    vol- 
canoes and  lichens,  235 
Voles,  four-footed  farmers  who  fill 
root  cellars  for  the  winter,  212 

Wasps,  their  habits  in  relation  to 
the  history  of  the  soil,  102 

Weather  and  the  groundhog's 
shadow,  219 

Weeds,  as  soil  makers,  9 

Winds,  how  they  helped  Mr. 
Lichen  to  discover  the  world,  i ; 


how  they  help  the  trees  to 
march,  12;  their  work  in  mak- 
ing, mixing,  and  transporting 
soil,  37 

Winter  in  the  animal  world,  under 
the  ground,  204 

Woodchuck  (Groundhog),  pictur- 
esque home  of  a  Connecticut 
woodchuck,  134;  Mr.  Wood- 
chuck's  winter  quarters  and  his 
shadow,  219 

Wyoming,  one  of  the  homes  of  the 
prehistoric  monsters,  27 


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